Third and Indiana: A Novel [Paperback]

Steve Lopez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1995

Someone is painting bodies on Philadelphia's Broad Streetone more boldly drawn chalk outline every time another life is lost to the violence of the drug wars. A sixteen-year-old dealer; a priest; a nine-year-old girl. The images pile through the summer and fall, moving closer each day to the doorstep of City Hall. Ofelia Santoro rides her bicycle over the bodies and through the dark, decaying streets of the neighborhood known to police as the Badlands. She is looking for her fourteen-year-old son, Gabriel, who disappeared a month earlier. His father skipped two years ago, and she's been losing her boy ever since. Gabriel got his first job when he was twelve, as a lookout, spotting cops for the coke sellers working the car trade. Now he's a dealer himself, the youngest guy in the Black Cap gang, holding down the most dangerous corner and hiring his own lookouts. He feels guilty getting kids involved the same way he got involved, but he needs them, or he'll be caught. Gabriel tries to outrun the neighborhood, taking cover with a drifter who is the father he might have had. But Gabriel is already trapped, at the mercy of Diablo, the ugliest of the dealers, a man who kills for fun. Steve Lopez's plot, dialogue, and pacing are masterful. With searing precision, he portrays a world of evil so routine that its seems inevitable. Yet Lopez endows his characters with such humanity that redemption and radiance lighten this darkness. Third and Indiana is an extraordinarily compelling and powerful debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Lopez's first novel portrays a 14-year-old boy who gets caught up with drug dealers in the inner city of Philadelphia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ofelia Santoro is determined to save her runaway son, Gabriel, from the drug dealers whose turf is Philadelphia's Badlands. Every night she rides a bicycle up and down the inner-city streets searching for her son, and every night she passes the folk-art memorial created in homage to the children who die every day as a result of the drug wars--an unknown artist is spray painting the outlines of children's bodies in the middle of the street; eventually, the bodies will pile up at the doorstep of City Hall. Fourteen-year-old Gabriel would like nothing better than to go home to his mother, but he's in too deep. His promotion from lookout to crack dealer has come with a price. The ruthless gang leader is convinced that Gabriel has been skimming profits, and it's payback time. First-novelist Lopez, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, siphons off the power of his eloquent images and his gritty sense of place with a slapstick subplot involving some bumbling thieves. This one lacks the intensity of Richard Price's Clockers (1992) and the lyricism of Jess Mowry's books; however, Lopez's Philadelphia is a marvel, its ruined streets and decaying infrastructure drawn with a delicate precision. Joanne Wilkinson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140239456
• ISBN-13: 978-0140239454
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Lopez is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Sunday Macaroni Club and Third and Indiana. He has been an editor-at-large for Time magazine and has also written for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry in a novel, December 22, 2004

By 

R. gaughan (N. CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Third and Indiana: A Novel (Paperback)

The plot of this book almost doesn't matter. What does matter is the beauty of the language--beautiful writing in it's most sublime form: the reader is immersed in the world of the book.

As another reviewer stated, the usage and structure is a little unusual, but once the reader becomes accustomed to the unique style it becomes transparent. We are on the streets of Philadelphia. We are in the minds of the characters.

What more could you possibly want in a novel?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, harrowing--and often humorous, February 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Third and Indiana (Hardcover)

Steve Lopez has a powerful voice, and "Third and Indiana" presents us with two characters, Gabriel and Eddie, who we won't soon forget. The scene near the beginning, when Eddie's flip chairs fly off the back of his truck on the expressway, is one of the funniest passages I've ever read. And his friendship with Gabriel, the sonless father and the fatherless son, is touching, but never maudlin--and always believable. Gabriel himself is someone we can completely believe, and like all great characters, he seems vaguely familiar to us, yet we can't remember where we met him before. An outstanding novel

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of the darkness, light., December 5, 2000

By 

Dr. Michael Hogan (Guadalajara, Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Third and Indiana: A Novel (Paperback)

This dark novel of the Philadelphia streets was not my first choice for vacation reading, but a fellow teacher whose judgment I respected suggested I read it. The writing is powerful and the street dialogue uncanny, as Lopez takes us through the darkness of drug dealing and violence with his unlikely 14 year old artist bathed in light. I've recommended it to all my friends, fellow teachers and students. Not only is it beautifully and compelling written, it's one hell of a good story.