The rat that got away : a Bronx memoir / Allen Jones with Mark Naison.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Jones, Allen, 1950-

Contributor:

• Naison, Mark, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Jones, Allen, 1950---Childhood and youth.
• African American young men--New York (State)--New York--Biography.
• Public housing--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
• Drug dealers--New York (State)--New York--Biography.
• Preparatory school students--Massachusetts--Great Barrington (Town)--Biography.
• African American basketball players--Europe--Biography.
• African Americans--Luxembourg--Biography.
• Bronx (New York, N.Y.)--Biography.
• New York (N.Y.)--Biography.
• Bronx (New York, N.Y.)--Social life and customs--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 193 p., [7] p. of plates ) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Rat That Got Away is an inspiring story of one man's odyssey from the streets of the Bronx to a life as a professional athlete and banker in Europe, but it is also provides a unique vantage point on the history of the Bronx and sheds new light on a neglected period in American urban history. Allen Jones grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx at a time--the 1950s--when that neighborhood was a place of optimism and hope for upwardly mobile Black and Latino families. Brought up in a two-parent household, with many neighborhood mentors, Jones led an almost charmed life as a budding basketball star until his teen years, when his once peaceful neighborhood was torn by job losses, white flight, and a crippling drug epidemic. Drawn into the heroin trade, first as a user, then as a dealer, Jones spent four months on Rikers Island, where he experienced a crisis of conscience and a determination to turn his life around. Sent to a New England prep school upon his release, Jones used his basketball skills and street smarts to forge a life outside the Bronx, first as a college athlete in the South, then as a professional basketball player, radio personality, and banker in Europe. A brilliant storyteller with a gift for dialogue, Jones brings Bronx streets and housing projects to life as places of possibility as well as tragedy, where racism and economic hardship never completely suppressed the resilient spirit of its residents. A book that will change the way people view the South Bronx.

Contents:

• Introduction / Mark Naison
• 1. Bronx Beginnings
• 2. Oil and Water: An Unlikely Marriage
• 3. Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child: Family
• 4. Love of God and the Lure of the Streets
• 5. The South Bronx by Day and Night
• 6. Lost and Found: Welcome to the '60s
• 7. The Rules of the Game
• 8. The Lessons of Sex
• 9. Gains and Losses
• 10. 1963 and Me
• 11. What Women Want
• 12. The Summer of Unrest: 1964
• 13. The Streets Are Alive: Summer of '65
• 14. Hustle and Heart, on and off Court
• 15. Becoming a Subject to the Bitch Queen Heroin
• 16. Welcome to Hell
• 17. Shifting Loyalties
• 18. The Road to The Tombs
• 19. Do the Crime, Do the Time
• 20. Judgment Day
• 21. Free at Last! Free at Last ...
• 22. Cornwall Academy
• 23. Summer Schooling
• 24. Going to College
• 25. College: Round II
• 26. Passage to Europe
• 27. Homecoming
• 28. The Year of the French
• 29. A New Life in Luxembourg
• 30. Finding My Groove
• 31. Standing on Higher Ground.

Notes:

• Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

• 9780823247028
• 0823247023
• 9780823240821
• 0823240827
• 9780823231041
• 0823231046

OCLC:

647876528