Guy Colwell’s 1970s underground comic book series Inner City Romance tread new territory: it was filled with stories about prison, black culture, ghetto life, the sex trade, and radical activism. It portrayed the unpleasant realities of life in the inner city, where opportunities were limited and being on the lowest end of the economic ladder meant that one’s vision of the American dream was more about survival than lifestyle choices. Every issue of Inner City Romance is included in this collection, as well as many of the highly detailed paintings Colwell created at the time. In an accompanying text piece, Colwell provides context for the material.
"Johnny Washington, a black teenager in Los Angeles, knows the freight yards like the back of his hand. He and his pals, Josh and Buddy, hit them often, stealing for a fence. They have to. They're the sole support of their families. But when Josh is killed by a security guard, they are forced to look for other work. They find it with the underworld kings in Elliot Davis." -- Back cover.
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as “deadbeat dads.” Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come together and get pregnant so quickly—without planning. The authors chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to the relationship’s demise. They offer keen insight into a radical redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central and parental ties are peripheral. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.
Doll is celebrated cartoonist Guy Colwell's (Inner City Romance) darkly satirical take on patriarchal ownership, dehumanization, and sexual objectification. When an artist crafts a lifelike sex doll for a disfigured, middle-aged virgin, it soon takes a lurid life of its own. Like an erotic Frankenstein's monster, the mannequin brings out the basest instincts in each person it crosses paths with.
Unsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice) Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules—based largely on an individual's ability to command respect—is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.
In her lively and conversational style, Carolyn Miller takes a high-spirited, unsentimental, in-depth look at what a soulmate is and how to connect with that special person. Sharing her own quest and that of dozens of other couples for a meant-to-be relationship, she uses true and extraordinary stories to illustrate what she means by inner guidance. Contrary to popular belief, soulmate couples do not usually recognize each other at first glance: When Roma was but eight years old, she risked her life daily by bringing food to Herman, who was interred in a Nazi concentration camp. They later met repeatedly while both lived in Israel, but it was not until nine years later that they met in New York and recognized that they were soulmates. Karen, a beautiful and successful pop singer, met Pat by handing him her card as she passed him in the street and asking him to "call me." They became fast friends, but neither felt that they were "right for each other." It was only after they put aside their preconceived ideas of what their ideal partner would be like that they became soulmates. Pedro and Elizabeth first met as they passed one another in a psychiatrist's office. Their therapist felt that they had a past-life connection but ethically could do nothing to bring them together. They met again while waiting for a plane, and discovered they were soulmates. Each chapter ends with guidelines for actualizing a soulmate relationship, which provide a practical aid to the reader who wishes to find his or her own "relationship made in heaven."
A dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming of age in a black funeral home in Baltimore Sheri Booker was only fifteen when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea her summer job would become nine years of immersion into a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, Sheri found comfort in the funeral home and soon had the run of the place. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.
After being abused by her uncle, G Child goes to live with her grandmother in the Central downtown area of Winnipeg. There, she is surrounded by kids who roam the apartment blocks, smoking and drinking and doing drugs. she meets Jessica and Gina, who become her best friends, and gets to know Gina’s older brother, Roland, founder of the Central outfit of the Diablos gang. As a young teen she is initiated into the Diablos and starts joining their campaign against the rival gang, the street Ryders (so named because they make their money pimping out girls). embracing the solidarity of gang membership, G Child feels loved and part of a family. But the stakes rise when the street Ryders kill a friend, and as G Child gets in deeper, moving in with her fellow gang girlfriends and selling crack to make money, she finds herself questioning her lifestyle. When someone she trusts reveals a dark, abusive streak, G Child knows it’s time to get out. But can she escape gang life before it kills her? A compelling read based on real-life experience, Innercity Girl Like Me is a brutally authentic look at gang life in Canada.
