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South by South Bronx
 
 
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South by South Bronx [Paperback]

Abraham Rodriguez Jr. (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Price: $15.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

April 1, 2008

“Powerful. . . . A redemptive and absorbing work.”—The New York Times Book Review, on Spidertown

“Scary, sexy, exuberant. . . . Rodriguez has seized a truth of our times . . . and given us a crackling good read.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review, on Spidertown

“Rodriguez uses the repetitiveness of life in the ghetto itself to make the tension and desperation of Spidertown achingly palpable.”—People, on Spidertown

“A joy to read! Rodriguez’s writing has never been more accomplished, more lyrical, more trenchant, or more humane. In these pages you will find marvels, but also a young man writing with the ferocity of life itself.”—Junot Díaz, on The Buddha Book

When Puerto Rican ladies’ man Alex awakes one morning to find a mysterious woman in his bed, he assumes he’s suffered another embarrassing blackout. He soon learns, however, that Ava is no one-night stand—in fact, he’s never met her before. As her story begins to unfold and her reason for appearing in his bed emerges, it is not just Alex’s life that she risks, nor her own, but the entire character of the South Bronx.

Abraham Rodriguez, Jr. was born and raised in the South Bronx. His first book, The Boy without a Flag, was a 1993 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Spidertown won a 1995 American Book Award and was optioned by Columbia Pictures. His most recent novel, The Buddha Book, was published by Picador in 2001. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Told from a variety of perspectives, including that of Detective Sanchez of the Bronx NYPD, this fevered noir from Rodriguez (Spidertown) centers on law enforcement's search for a drug dealer known as Spook, who had agreed to launder huge sums of money for a terrorist group, but took off with the cash instead. Punctuating the main story line are chapters whose relevance is obscure; one, for example, contains short biographies of Leni Riefenstahl, Anne Sexton and Marlene Dietrich. The author eventually pulls the disparate strands together, including those to do with Ava Reynolds, a mysterious blonde with instant recall who proves her ability by memorizing a page of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. At its best, the novel carries the reader along by the force of its hypnotic prose, but the effort necessary to keep track of what's going on may turn off those more comfortable with a conventional linear narrative. Author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

An alcoholic lothario shoe salesman wakes up with a cute woman in his bed. Where did she come from? Monk and Mink are a writer and a painter, respectively, who rode a wave of Hispanic-chic in the arts until the wave broke; now Monk has disappeared. Sanchez is a South Bronx detective on the outs for nailing some vigilante cops for a string of murders. Today the feds arrive and ask for his help in finding Spook, a drug dealer hired by a terrorist group to launder $10 million. Since Spook didn’t make that last deposit, the feds have lost the money trail. Rodriguez, winner of an American Book Award in 1995 for Spidertown, shifts narrative perspective constantly, moving from Alex the alcoholic to the woman in his bed to Mink and sometimes to Sanchez as first-person narrator. Initially, readers will be challenged by seemingly unconnected vignettes and characters, but Rodriguez teasingly pulls them together until eventually we have a poetic thriller in which the body count rises as the painfully self-aware Sanchez balances duty versus survival. A very different and rewarding mystery. --Wes Lukowsky

Product Details

  • Paperback: 350 pages
  • Publisher: Akashic Books (April 1, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1933354569
  • ISBN-13: 978-1933354569
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,435,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite book from my favorite author, December 25, 2011
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This review is from: South by South Bronx (Paperback)
Rodriguez knows how to draw you into his characters and knows how to write them with authenticity, sharp, precise description, and great dialogue. That's what I love about this author and he executes those techniques very well in this book. Another strength of the story is how well Rodriguez uses setting to create mood and tension between the characters. The scene where the NYPD detective is talking to the FBI agent in the bar while salsa music is blaring and they are pounding down drinks is one of my favorite. Each description builds off of the other to create an explosive tension between these characters that is extremely engaging. My disappointment with this book was the ending and its why I gave it 3 stars. Overall, I enjoy the work of this author and highly recommend you read his work, especially Spidertown.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
fire escape window, bread truck
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
South Bronx, Puerto Rican, Lieutenant Jack, Ava Reynolds, Dirty Harry, David Rosario, Prospect Avenue, Anne Sexton, Internal Affairs, Southern Boulevard, Westchester Avenue, Van Cortlandt, Palma de Mallorca, Puerto Rico, East River, Third Avenue, United States, Detective Sanchez, Jackson Avenue, Hunts Point, Eva Braun, Bruckner Expressway, Kurt Cobain, Daffy Duck, Baseball Cap
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