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BOOK REVIEWS How Long Will I Cry?; Anatomy of a Girl Gang
by Sally Parsons
2015-05-27

This article shared 3232 times since Wed May 27, 2015
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How Long Will I Cry?

edited by Miles Harvey

Free ( from

BigShouldersBooks.com );

Big Shoulders Press; 244 pages

Anatomy of a Girl Gang

by Ashley Little

$13.77; Arenal

Pulp Press; 253 pages

Two books shed a light on violence and youth—one a compilation of real stories, the other fictional. One centered on what happens in Chicago, the other Vancouver. Both are powerful and moving chronicles of a subset of contemporary urban life.

If you saw the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production last year based on the interviews in this book, you know how gut-wrenching these people's stories can be. Here is a rare opportunity to read the full stories. If you did not see the theatre piece, dig in and the stories will come alive for you.

The interviews are with activists, gang members and retired gang bangers, moms, a retired Chicago cop, preachers, and more. Some names you may recognize; most you probably will not.

The book is the result of a project started by creative-writing students from DePaul University, who in 2011 and 2012 talked with people all over Chicago affected by violence. The interviewers' professor, Miles Harvey, is the editor of the resulting book.

The first interview is with T-awannda Piper, the woman who, in 2009, carried Derrion Albert's limp body from the Roseland sidewalk near Fenger High School into the Agape Community Center, where he could be tended to safely after a severe beating by young men using scrap lumber. Piper is a community activist. She spoke out only after careful consideration, feeling it might benefit her community. She states, "things have really gone down in terms of people feeling responsible for the young people in our community." She believes public aid has in some ways "handicapped" family dynamics, taking away "the ownership that poor families once had with their children." The kids, she says, have been left to their own devices. Because of what happened to Derrion, a stigma has fallen on the Fenger kids and their families, portrayed as "unpromising, as a breed of animals, as a menace." Piper hopes the stories in the book and the resulting discussions let young people know they have a choice.

The interviews with the kids who have been in gangs reveal their motivations and circumstances related to violence. "when you join a gang," says Jaime Miranda, "it's necessary for you to fight with other gang members, no matter what the cause is." John McCullough, a former gang banger, says violence is an everyday thing. "It's gonna be something petty, and it's gonna end in violence."

Pamela Hester-Jones honors her dead son, Lazarus, with a campaign and service center named after him. Lazarus, at age 13, was beaten to death on a corner in Albany Park. There were many witnesses and no one did anything to help him, his mom states. Lazarus was a good kid.

Max Cerda, now a middle-aged man, saw himself as a soldier when he was in a gang. For him, learning to read in prison was transformative.

These, and many more accounts, are your entry point into lives twisted by—and, yes—transformed by violence. They are well worth your investigation.

There is a resource guide at the back of the book that lists some of the groups in Chicago involved in anti-violence efforts. There is also a study guide with questions teachers and discussion groups can use to explore the issues raised by these stories.

Whether you tackle this book and the hard questions it poses on your own or within a group, you will find How Long Will I Cry? eye-opening, unsettling, and perhaps galvanizing to action.

This novel is raw. The author sucks you into the lives of Mac, Mercy, Kayos, Sly Girl and Z—all under 18, but each having lived a complete life or two already. The other central character is the city of Vancouver. Each has a distinctive voice. Together, the five girls make up the Black Roses, a girl gang as dangerous as any of their male counterparts staking out territory in the Canadian city.

Anatomy of a Girl Gang is the story of the brief life of the Black Roses gang—how it was born, how it grew, and how it expired. Along the way, you feel for each of the girls: Mac, the leader; Mercy, the Punjabi orphan from Surrey with a knack for theft; Kayos, a kickboxer with a mean weapons collection and a little girl; Sly Girl, native American runaway with a messed-up face; and Z, a graffiti wizard.

You gasp at their backgrounds and what happens to them. You learn a thing or two about how to lift money and cars. And you revel in the rich language. Here's the voice of Z: "my frend Ben-E tellz me de$e chix want2 meet me." And here's the voice of the city: "A hard rain pours into me. … as the indigo evening envelops the city, the sky finds total release, and all the scum is washed off the streets."

The narration jumps back and forth between the characters, each sharing their viewpoint on an incident they experienced together, or a glimpse into their alter-lives outside the gang.

The story revolves around putting together a girl gang with a dream of buying a big house and living the good life. As they all scrabble to pull together their resources, two of them fall in love, and their past, and events conspire against them. The gang hatches a plot to get their hands on a lot of money but things go horribly wrong.

It's a fast read. You can't put it down. The author has a bright future; keep an eye out for her.


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