Third and Indiana [Hardcover]

Steve Lopez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1994

A searing look at despair, passion, and hope in the drug-infested Badlands of Philadelphia tells of Ofelia's desperate search for her missing fourteen-year-old son, Gabriel, who is at the mercy of a sadistic dealer. A first novel. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This hard-edged, stunning first novel is set on and around the corner of Third and Indiana in the "Badlands" of Philadelphia. Fourteen-year-old Gabriel Santoro has been assigned to this spot by a local drug king, Diablo, and it is here that the boy makes a small fortune by handing out crack to people in passing cars. Gabriel has run away from home, and his mother, Ofelia, aided by a sympathetic priest, is looking for him. What she doesn't know is that her son is staying with Eddie Passarelli, who needs 10 grand to pay back a mobster for the loss of a loaned truck; meanwhile, Diablo is demanding two grand from Gabriel to make up for an alleged shortage in his cash count. Money, with its awful power, is almost a separate character in this novel. Some, like Gabriel, become drug dealers to get more of it; others, like Eddie, are endangered because they don't have enough of it. Lopez (a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer ) doesn't preach, however; with brutal honesty, he alternates scenes of despair with glimmerings of hope and, even when detailing matter-of-fact violence, he writes with compassion about those trapped in a world where men like Diablo make the rules and are the arbiters of life and death. He also employs a brilliant visual image: spray-painted silhouettes that appear on North Broad Street whenever a teenager dies in a gun-related incident. It's an image that is as haunting as this tough, compelling novel. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1994 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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (September 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670856762
• ISBN-13: 978-0670856763
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,795,329 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 (Mass Market 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 (Mass Market 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.