Spidertown (Flamingo original) - Tapa blanda

Sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican Miguel leads a crazy high life in his desperately poor Bronx neighbourhood. Reaping the outrageous rewards of apprenticeship to kingpin crack dealer Spider, Miguel and his arsonist friend, Firebug, exist in a frenetic whirl of partying and casual sex that skirts perilously close to the edge. It is only when Miguel falls deeply in love with a 'straight' girl, Cristalena, that he is forced to confront the dangerous realities of his world...

Born and raised in the South Bronx, Abraham Rodriguez chronicles the lives of the foot soldiers of the drugs world with gritty authenticity. 'Spidertown' marks the debut of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

'Rodriguez, with his youthful verve, his high-voltage style, has seized on a truth of our times. A scary, sexy, exuberant first novel... a crackling good read.'
LOS ANGELES TIMES

'On barren, lawless streets, where the shadows are enlivened by the curling blue flame inside a glass pipe-bowl, it is possible to forget that the lurking figures – the dealers, the runners, the crackheads – are often children. It is an achievement of 'Spidertown', a powerful first novel, to remind us. Mr Rodriguez has given us a redemptive and absorbing work.'
NEW YORK TIMES

'Spoken with a voice and voices so authentic you hear them, with characters so compellingly portrayed that you see them, and a narrative so gripping that you live it. It's 'West Side Story' with a soundtrack of gunfire.'
CHICAGO NEW CITY