Harper Teen - October 11, 1967
192 pages
Alfred Brooks is a high school dropout who works at Lou Epstein's grocery store in Harlem to make a living but spends his nights with a street gang. One night information slips about how this night the Epsteins leave money in the cash register, and the gang is out there in a flash. Too bad Alfred forgot about the silent alarm. Now gang member James is in jail, and the others--Sonny, Hollis, and Major--are out to get him for this. Alfred is scared, and he knows that the only way he'll be able to protect himself is if he knows how to fight back. So he joins Donatelli's Gym to learn how to be a boxer. Donatelli tells him that everyone jumps in wanting to be a champion, but you have to start by being a contender.
There was an original premise to this book. There was. In 1967, when it was published, this was relatively original. Now it has been copied over and over, and there is no way to claim that this was the original. The plot may be original and creative, yes, but what about the rest? When it comes to characters, Lipsyte spends an exceedingly long amount of time developing them from archetypes into some semblance of an actual human being, with deep levels of psyche. Of course this can never be truly accomplished in a book, but the first time I thought of Alfred as something more than an archetype was in chapter 18, and there are only twenty chapters in the entire book. As for the setting, since I wasn't alive in 1967 I wouldn't know how popular certain locations were in settings, but Harlem seems a bit overdone and stock-y. When it comes to the dialogue, it seems more or less wooden, as if there were automatons instead of humans. If that's the case, it explains the lack of character development.
The plot is good, though, and that's the second most important thing in a novel. The first being character, of course. (The total order is character, plot, dialogue, writing, setting).
WARNING: This book contains violence, language, and drug use, among other things. Please know what you are reading before you read it.
Grade: C+
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