The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

This was a tough read from the get go, if you come from the Wire to this you might be disappointed, I suggest to read homicide first and then read Then Corner, this book does not flinch in what ha-pens in a drug corner and for every page you read the weight of a system that has gone fubar starts to feel oppressing. Good book but not a light read.

I remembered when HBO premiered the mini-series. It was so sad to see what became of the people when it originally aired then. I became curious and learned the mini-series was based on the book about the people. I finished the book today and it is a good book. However, it was really tragic to learn the additional details that were in the book. For instance, DeAndre had moved from snorting heroin, to smoking crack by 1995, and to using IV drugs. I just recently read that DeAndre died in 2012 from a heroin overdose as well.

The copy of \”The Corner\” I ordered had been released from a library in Virginia because of, the red stamp in the front of the book read, \”low demand.\” Therein lies a reflection of the tragedy at the heart of the book. David Simon and Edward Burns portray a year in the life of a drug-ravaged West Baltimore neighborhood — \”the corner\” — represented primarily by Fayette and Monroe streets, the site of one of numerous open-air drug markets in the area. But \”the corner\” is also an entity, in Simons\’ and Burns\’ telling, a being that draws residents to it, demands their money and daily commitment and ultimately consumes them in their daily quest for a \”blast.\” A clutch of characters the two reporters followed live at the heart of this big, vital book. Fran Boyd and Gary McCullough, each addicts, are parents to DeAndre McCullough, a teenager slipping toward the corner. In the course of the year DeAndre fathers a child with 14-year-old Tyreeka Freamon, ultimately all but abandoning them. Various members of DeAndre\’s crew and \”touts\” for the dealers slide in and out of the narrative, many of them drifting toward death or prison. There is also a moving portrayal of Ella Thompson, a stubborn organizer of community resources who struggles mightily to wrest the underlying humanity she still sees in her neighborhood to the surface. Throughout the book the authors keep the reader teetering on a razor\’s edge of fear and very slim hope. The people who inhabit \”The Corner\” are damaged people. As a middle-class person I found myself disappointed and angry when DeAndre blows off a job for no good reason or Fran struggles bravely toward kicking her habit but falls back or the tout \”Fat Curt,\” gravely ill, fails to adhere to the medical care he so desperately needs. And we wonder why Gary, one of many members of a solid, hardworking family and a man who had gained a large measure of success and security in his life slid into an abyss of addiction. \”The Corner\” is not without a point of view on this subject. The book is an indictment of the futility of the war on drugs, the ineptitude of the public school system and the frankly uncaring attitude of governments at all level toward people they view as expendable in the grand scheme of American life. This book is painstakingly detailed, a masterpiece of sociological observation, but it is not a old, clinical report of a crumbling neighborhood. The authors look at what they see clearly and unflinchingly and allow the voices of their subjects to shine through. Those voices may make you uncomfortable, they may make you angry, they may make you nod in agreement, they may make you laugh. They are always real, and the authors\’ connection to them is obvious. I am afraid that books like the \”Corner,\” which portray urban life in the early and mid-90s, will more than ever be consigned to dusty library corners or the shelves of private collections like my own. Listen to the rhetoric of the 2012 presidential race and it\’s clear how completely the descendants of the characters on \”The Corner\” have been marginalized. While we wring our hands about \”the middle class,\” another class continues to struggle, as it has for years, outside our view. I was grateful for the small ray of hope that emerged at the end of \”The Corner.\” Grateful because it had to fight its way through so many layers of the sadness that is at the heart of this unforgettable book.

This book follows the lives of a Baltimore neighborhood that is an open drug park. Over 4 years time, the writers basically lived among the pushers, fiends, and a few straight people, documenting their lives. This is the book that people need to read when they\’re thinking that we\’re winning the war on drugs. That rehab, mandatory drug sentencing, better policing, and more prisons are what will work to solve the drug problems. Keep thinking that.

I read this book after having read Simon\’s previous work, Homicide A Year on the Streets. Simon and Burns did a great job of portraying these people of the corner and making me care about them. I also have a better understanding of why it is so difficult to leave the life on the corner. The authors point out many problems with the various social programs which have failed to turn these lives around. What is depressing and disturbing to me is that there seem to be no good solutions to the problems of the corner. I don\’t have a clue, and that makes me sad for the great waste of human lives. I only gave 4 stars because the flow of the story was interrupted several times by a digression on the failures of the system and the war on drugs. I found myself skimming through to get back to the story. Maybe these should have presented as a last chapter in the book. This, though, is a minor quibble.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member