Man Gone Down

Man Gone DownOn the eve of his thirty fifth birthday, the unnamed black narrator of Man Gone Down finds himself broke, estranged from his white wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six year old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep the kids in school and make a down payment on an apartment for them in which to live. As we slip between his childhood in inner city Boston and present day New York City, we learn of a

On the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday, the unnamed black narrator of Man Gone Down finds himself broke, estranged from his white wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six-year-old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep the kids in school and make a down payment on an apartment for them in which to live. As we slip between his childhood in inner city Boston and present-day New York City, we learn of a life marked by abuse, abandonment, raging alcoholism, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is a story of the American Dream gone awry, about what it's like to feel preprogrammed to fail in life and the urge to escape that sentence.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Published: 01/01/2007
ISBN: 9780802170293
Pages: 431
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.20d
Award: International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award - Winner

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2006 pg. 928
Publishers Weekly 10/09/2006 pg. 34
Library Journal 10/15/2006 pg. 56
Library Journal 11/01/2006 pg. 92
Booklist 11/15/2006 pg. 30
New York Times 02/04/2007 pg. 1
People Weekly 03/05/2007 pg. 50
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/02/2007 pg. 12