Cuz

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Pub Date 09 Nov 2017 | Archive Date 16 Dec 2017

Description

'Devastating' J. M. Coetzee, Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature

THE STORY OF A YOUNG MAN'S COMING OF AGE
A TENDER TRIBUTE TO A LIFE LOST
A DEVASTATING ANALYSIS OF A BROKEN SYSTEM


Aged 15 and living in LA, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released aged 26, only to be murdered three years later.

In this deeply personal yet clear-eyed memoir, Danielle Allen reconstructs her cousin’s life to try and understand how this tragedy was the end result. We become intimate with Michael’s experience, from his first steps to his first love, and with the events of his arrest, his coming of age in prison, and his attempts to make up for lost time after his release. We learn what it’s like to grow up in a city carved up by invisible gang borders; and we learn how a generation has been lost.

With breathtaking bravery and intelligence, Cuz circles around its subject, viewing it from all angles to expose a shocking reality. The result is both a personal and analytical view of a life that wields devastating power.

This is the new American tragedy.

'Devastating' J. M. Coetzee, Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature

THE STORY OF A YOUNG MAN'S COMING OF AGE
A TENDER TRIBUTE TO A LIFE LOST
A DEVASTATING ANALYSIS OF A BROKEN...


Advance Praise

'What starts as a personal memoir, an effort to resurrect from oblivion a beloved cousin who died young, modulates in Allen's hands into a cool, reasoned, but ultimately devastating indictment of the War on Drugs and the sentencing regime it has given birth to. In plain terms, stripped of the jargon of the social sciences, she shows us what awaits you if you are young, black, and unlucky in today's United States.'
J. M. COETZEE

'A literary and political event like Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, Allen’s Cuz is an elegiac memoir and social jeremiad born out of the tragedy of mass incarceration. A loving cousin paying tribute to her brilliant and beloved but troubled “cuz,” Allen hits a grand slam.'
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

'In this narrative of freedom and incarceration, education and disadvantage, rehabilitation and punishment, Danielle Allen paints an unforgettable portrait of a cousin she loved. The pacing is brisk and novelistic, but the message is large and clear: we need urgently to reform the system through which we process juveniles who commit crime, because the current system perpetuates the very injustices it was designed to address.'
ANDREW SOLOMON

'Allen, whose writing is creative and accessible, uses her finely tuned talent to fold Michael’s fate into the gathering storms of the U.S. criminal-justice system and Los Angeles’ gang-related and racial turmoil. Both a searching, personal elegy and a sure-footed lamentation of the systems meant to protect us, this is a searing must-read.'
ANNIE BOSTROM, BOOKLIST

'What starts as a personal memoir, an effort to resurrect from oblivion a beloved cousin who died young, modulates in Allen's hands into a cool, reasoned, but ultimately devastating indictment of...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781847925145
PRICE £10.99 (GBP)
PAGES 256

Average rating from 5 members


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