Items related to Honky
This memoir is the coming-of-age story of a white boy growing up in a neighborhood of predominantly African American and Latino housing projects on New York's Lower East Side. Vividly evoking the details of city life from a child's point of view - the streets, buses, and playgrounds - Honky illuminates the usual vulnerabilities of childhood complicated by unusual circumstances. As he narrates these sharply etched and often funny memories, Conley shows how race and class shaped his life and the lives of his schoolmates and neighbors. A case study for illuminating the larger issues of inequality in American society, Honky brings us to a deeper understanding of the privilege of whiteness, the social construction of race, the power of education, and the challenges of inner-city life.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap:
As recalled in Honky, Dalton Conley's childhood has all of the classic elements of growing up in America. But the fact that he was one of the few white boys in a mostly black and Puerto Rican neighborhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side makes Dalton's childhood unique.
At the age of three, he couldn't understand why the infant daughter of the black separatists next door couldn't be his sister, so he kidnapped her. By the time he was a teenager, he realized that not even a parent's devotion could protect his best friend from a stray bullet. Years after the privilege of being white and middle class allowed Conley to leave the projects, his entertaining memoir allows us to see how race and class impact us all. Perfectly pitched and daringly original, Honky is that rare book that entertains even as it informs.
From the Back Cover:
At the age of three, he couldn't understand why the infant daughter of the black separatists next door couldn't be his sister, so he kidnapped her. By the time he was a teenager, he realized that not even a parent's devotion could protect his best friend from a stray bullet. Years after the privilege of being white and middle class allowed Conley to leave the projects, his entertaining memoir allows us to see how race and class impact us all. Perfectly pitched and daringly original, Honky is that rare book that entertains even as it informs.
“With precision and poetry, this...absorbing volume [gives] readers a rare opportunity for insight into the complexities of race in America.”–San Francisco Chronicle
“Lucid, readable and almost entirely devoid of jargon.... A must read for thinking adults.”–The Washington Post
“A wonderful book.... A triumph.”–Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
“Lucid, readable and almost entirely devoid of jargon.... A must read for thinking adults.”–The Washington Post
“A wonderful book.... A triumph.”–Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherDemco Media
- ISBN 10 0606223649
- ISBN 13 9780606223645
- BindingPaperback
- Rating
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want