Manchild in the Promised Land

Summary: "[This autobiography] is written with brutal and unvarnished honesty in the plain talk of the people, in language that is fierce, uproarious, obscene and tender, but always sensible and direct. And to its enormous credit, this youthful autobiography gives us its devastating portrait of life without one cry of self-pity, outrage or malice, with no caustic sermons or searing rhetoric. Claude Brown speaks for himself--a...nd the Harlem people to whom his life is bound--with open dignity, and the effect is both shattering and deeply satisfying...His story is not all savagery, however. Very often it is told with humor...But the final strength of this autobiography rests in the survival of the author himself...[This work] is a mature autobiography of the coming of age of one hidden human being, whose experience and generation are absolutely crucial to any future history of the American people." [read more]