Buffalo Tree, The

Clipping hoodies changed Sura's life. He's shipped off to Hamstock, a juvenile detention center that's worse than most. At the Stock they don't. try to keep juvies till they reform. They just keep guys till they feel like letting them go.

Sura and his patchmate, a kid named Coly Jo, look out for each other and try to evade the Stock's sadistic games. But things turn bad fast for Coly Jo, and Sura helplessly watches his friend's descent into hell, determined to escape with his own body and spirit intact -- if he can.

Thirteen-year old Sura--intelligent, reckless, sensitive, and adrift--is serving a six-month sentence at Hamstock Juvenille Detention Center. Coping wiht the brutal pressures of life inside "the Stock," Sura helplessly watches his doomed bunkmate, Coly Jo, fall prey to the worst excesses of the prison system, and determines to escape with his own body and spirit intac -- if he can.

Adam Rapp is a playwright as well as a novelist. His work has been produced and developed by the New York Theatre Workshop, the Steppenwolf Theater Company, New York City's Public Theatre, and The Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Mr. Rapp lives in New York City. The Buffalo Tree is his second novel.