Down These Mean Streets - Hardcover

Thomas, Piri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394421574 ISBN 13: 9780394421575

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967

Synopsis

8vo. x, 333 (3) pp, author's acknowledgments, prologue, Harlem: Suburbia; Harlem; Suburbia; Down South; Harlem; Prison; New York Town. First Printing, 1967. Maroon cloth with gilt lettering to spine. ``This is a document of one man's journey from childhood to maturity and records the sometimes poetic, sometimes brutal story of a life begun in Spanish Harlem. Yet it is not merely a memoir, as his story is shot through with figures that create a vigorous and brooding world family, friends, the people of the streets, and those of prison. The Language is the most corrupt of the city and also that of the most innocent reaches of the human heart. His work in Spanish Harlem was the subject of the award-winning film Petey and Johnny, in which he both appeared and provided the narration." from the jacket flap.

About this title

Review:

The 30th anniversary edition of this classic memoir about growing up in Spanish Harlem includes an afterword reminding us that its streets are even meaner now, thanks to crack cocaine and the dismantling of government poverty programs. As a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, born in 1928, Piri Thomas faced with painful immediacy the absurd contradictions of America's racial attitudes (among people of all colors) in a time of wrenching social change. Three decades have not dimmed the luster of his jazzy prose, rich in Hispanic rhythms and beat-generation slang.

From the Publisher:

"Piri Thomas describes the passionate, painful search to validate his manhood...He has done it all in Harlem's mean streets and gone on from machismo to manhood, acquiring during the journey an understanding of man."--The Nation

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication date: 1967
• ISBN 10: 0394421574
• ISBN 13: 9780394421575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 331