The eastside of Buffalo, New York, is notorious for its violence, gangs and dope. It’s a dangerous place for those unfamiliar with the codes of the streets, but for those who roam this concrete jungle, they learn to survive by any means necessary. Pappy is one of those survivors, a young man seeking knowledge of himself and striving to be accepted by others like himself. As a child he was raised by a man who murdered his mother but protected him as a caring father would be expected to. Pappy became a street gangster and cocaine dealer, using drugs and alcohol to cope with everyday living. In the midst of his destructive lifestyle he became a rap artist, but the streets held her negative grip until he found himself behind prison walls, where he found a new way of life.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Read!,
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This review is from: Pappy (Paperback)
Walter Tariq Anderson's debut novel detailing a difficult childhood of abuse, neglect, and the awful but formidable trauma of the murder of one parent at the jealous and irate hands of another is the typical stuff of ole American family tales. In that sense, this novel is not fresh or original, but, because of its rich dialogue and deep social commentary, this book cannot be discarded away to the tufted literary junk-pile of crass writing and soul-less memories that has been the signature stereotype of self-published writers.
Told in the funk-braised tradition of Donald Goines street narratives, Anderson's novel - a story about a kid named Pappy who grew up on the east side of Buffalo New York - is a double-edged allegory that craftily meshes together past and present scenarios to present a tragic portrait of a man who reaches the end of a tightrope existence only to face the mess of what has become his life. The writing's on the wall and Pappy will either swim or drown in the perilous currents that conspire to undermine him in his own nihilistic drama of drugs, sex, and violence. But, will Pappy learn from his mistakes and save his life? Will he ever make it out of the place that now serves as the middle-world between life and death? To do this, Pappy must first examine his life from past to the present: He grew up a spoiled and pampered child and got everything he wanted, and he was constantly doted on by two loving parents and a maternal grandmother who protected him from the ills of his surroundings up to the day she died. Then, something traumatic happens to Pappy's family and he is changed forever, and the effects of his traumatic childhood is acted out on the tough, hardened, criminal streets of east Buffalo, New York, a rancid neighborhood infamously known as the citadel for inner-city violence, gangs, drugs, as well as teen-pregnancy and high drop-out rates. Before it's all over, Pappy is stretched out in a recovery program for drug addicts, trying to figure out what went wrong. In this blues-dipped drama of home-bred despair and storefront misery, Pappy searches for a meaningful existence and a purpose in life before he - like so many other young black males - becomes a statistic, or worse, a victim of his own wretchedness. This book should be in every innercity library.
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