AMERICAN SKIN BOOK SKINHEAD Oi Ska Boots Braces GRAZIA

Item specifics - Fiction Books

Author:	Don De Grazia	Format:	Softcover
Publisher:	Touchstone Books	ISBN-10:	0684862220
ISBN-13:	9780684862224	Category:	Action, Adventure
Publication Year:	2000	Sub-Category:	--
Special Attributes:	--	Condition:	Brand New

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Detailed item info

Synopsis
Alex Verdi, son of drug dealers, flees after his parents are arrested. In Chicago, he joins a group of skinheads, lives on the streets, makes his way to an Army boot camp--and eventually ends up in prison himself.
Size
Length:	295 pages
Height:	8.0 in.
Width:	5.3 in.
Thickness:	0.8 in.
Weight:	16.0 oz.

Industry reviews
"AMERICAN SKIN asserts that author Don De Grazia couldn't find an American publisher for this, his first novel, and with his last 75 bucks sent it off to England, where it finally found a home. One shouldn't in the least be surprised at this. Grazia's story is a wild and improbable one....There is romance, ample violence and laughs. There is a nuanced examination of the skinhead subculture....The book is short on politically correct platitudes and fired by a fierce voice and a loving commitment to try to do something interesting with the American idiom. That is not to suggest that Grazia's work is without a moral center, but people who read books looking for sermons and affirmations deserve what they get, and AMERICAN SKIN is for those who read to encounter craftsmanship and feats of imagination. No wonder the novel couldn't pass muster here. It is brilliant." Morris "The novel vibrates with violent masculine energy and foul-mouthed sardonic good humor. On the surface, it's a detailed look at an often-misunderstood subculture. But De Grazia digs deeper than that....Not everything works in AMERICAN SKIN. Several of De Grazia's plot twists are extraneous and unbelievable. And Alex's college girlfriend is hardly more than a walking J. Crew ad. These are minor shortcomings, though. De Grazia's ability to write brilliantly about horrific things keeps the reader locked into his narrative. In its willingness to examine the relationship between violent behavior and the intense social pressure to conform, AMERICAN SKIN harks back to the tough social-realism movies of the 1950s....It's a positive direction in which to take new American fiction, and for now Don De Grazia is right up front." Wallace "[A] dense and often violent first novel....AMERICAN SKIN is an uneven but darkly captivating depiction of alienation's many guises." New York Times Book Review - Jonathan Miles (04/23/2000) "Occasionally it seems that the novel, like Alex himself, may want to be too many things at once. De Grazia has a truly thrilling, cinematic sense of scene, but there are times when one wishes his episodes were a bit more fleshed out…it's hard not to want the novel to be longer, given the Dickensian scope of its ambitions. And De Grazia is ambitious. AMERICAN SKIN is no mere pop-cultural artifact, and though it delivers enough sex and violence and underground hipness to make it a cult favorite, this isn't a book that seems particularly interested in being cool. The guy on the cover sneers and poses, but De Grazia does not. Instead, what lingers here is an old-fashioned, unironic generosity of spirit…." Chicago Tribune Books - Don Chaon (04/23/2000) "Occasionally it seems that the novel, like Alex himself, may want to be too many things at once. De Grazia has a truly thrilling, cinematic sense of scene, but there are times when one wishes his episodes were a bit more fleshed out…it's hard not to want the novel to be longer, given the Dickensian scope of its ambitions. And De Grazia is ambitious. AMERICAN SKIN is no mere pop-cultural artifact, and though it delivers enough sex and violence and underground hipness to make it a cult favorite, this isn't a book that seems particularly interested in being cool. The guy on the cover sneers and poses, but De Grazia does not. Instead, what lingers here is an old-fashioned, unironic generosity of spirit…." (04/23/2000)

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THE BOOK: AMERICAN SKIN by Don De Grazia
It has never been read & is in new condition. Please see pictures.

From Publishers Weekly:
"De Grazia's powerful debut fearlessly explores racism, adolescent rage and terrifyingly violent youth movements; its adolescent hero is a skinhead, getting into trouble in Chicago's late '80s scene. Intense, unsparing and fueled by a desperate energy, this graphically violent novel will not be to every taste, but it rings true with poignant clarity. Alex Verdi, a daydreaming 17-year-old, leaves home--an Illinois farmhouse--when his parents are busted for selling marijuana, and hitches a ride to the Windy City. There, he lives at the Y and gets a job in an electroplating plant, where he earns the nickname "Degreaser." He's also mugged and beaten by hoods, so when he joins a group of multiracial "anti-Nazi" skinheads, it's partly for protection, partly for a sense of belonging. Strongman leader Timmy Penn quickly becomes Alex's surrogate big brother and role model, but Alex also falls under the spell of a "straightedge" skinhead girl, Marie. Donning the group's image, he manages to get along bruisingly, until a violent encounter with a rival, "white power" skinhead faction, followed by a fight in a nightclub, finds Alex and Tim facing serious police charges. After family intervention, the pair are sent to the army reserves in Fort Benning instead of prison. Once the two youths are discharged, their paths split: Tim goes off to become a drug dealer and Alex tries to clean up his act by moving to Evanstown, a tony suburb--but even there, his ugly past catches up with him. Rights sold in Canada and France; film rights to Frederick Levy Productions. (Apr.) FYI: Written as De Grazia's M.A. thesis, American Skin was rejected by numerous U.S. publishers. Alerted to the success of working-class fiction in England, De Grazia sent his manuscript to Jonathan Cape in London, which published the novel in 1998.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc."

From The Washington Post:
"American Skin is for those who read to encounter craftsmanship and feats of imagination... it is brilliant."

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