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.

Jones, Allen.

African American young men--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

African American young men.

Public housing--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Public housing.

Drug dealers--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Drug dealers.

Preparatory school students--Massachusetts--Great Barrington (Town)--Biography.

Preparatory school students.

African American basketball players--Europe--Biography.

African American basketball players.

African Americans--Luxembourg--Biography.

African Americans.

Bronx (New York, N.Y.)--Biography.

Bronx (New York, N.Y.).

New York (N.Y.)--Biography.

New York (N.Y.).

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