Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America by Geoffrey Canada

Product Details

Synopsis

A classic coming-of-age memoir that examines urban youth violence and its causes

Long before U.S. News and World Report named him one of America’s Best Leaders and Oprah Winfrey called him “an angel from God,” Geoffrey Canada was a vulnerable, scared boy growing up in the South Bronx. Canada’s world was one where “sidewalk” boys learned the codes of the block and were ranked through the rituals of fist, stick, and knife. Then the streets changed, and the stakes got even higher. Canada relives a childhood in which violence stalked every street corner.

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Annotation

Through shattering storytelling, Canada recreates his childhood world, one in which the sidewalk boys learned the codes of the block from their elders and were ranked through the ritual of fist, stick and knife. He gives a cogent, chilling analysis of how things changed on the streets in the 1960s. And a thorough portrait of present reality. National ads/media.

Publishers Weekly

Canada knows the world of inner-city children intimately, for he grew up in some of the most dangerous areas of the Bronx. As a young child, he learned that only those who can fight will survive. When he reached adolescence, the knife was the weapon of choice, but for today's youth, which he calls ``the handgun generation,'' it is the pistol. Canada explains exactly what growing up in this war zone does to the psyche: fear, doubt and anger crowd the mind, driving out love, friendship and laughter. There is no post-traumatic stress syndrome, because there is no ``post.'' Greedy drug dealers and gun manufacturers, he says, by flooding the inner cities with their products, have made urban violence, which always existed, more deadly. He has a series of recommendations, rooted in his own experience as a child and as an adult, that are thoroughly convincing. A more powerful depiction of the tragic life of urban children and a more compelling plea to end ``America's war against itself'' cannot be imagined. 40,000 first printing; author tour. (June)

Biography

Geoffrey Canada is president of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families in New York City. He is the recipient of a 1995 Heinz Foundation Award and a Parents Magazine Award for his work in child advocacy, and he is author of Fist Stick Knife Gun (Beacon/paperback/0-8070-0423-5/$12.00).