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Slipping Into Darkness: A True Story From the American Ghetto
This shocking saga details the year and a half investigative journalist M. Rutledge McCall spent living in the largest, most violent ghetto in America: California s South Central Los Angeles.
During his time in the hood, gang members were sending bullet-riddled corpses to the county morgue at the rate of one every 11 hours. After spending months in gang turf on a regular basis, sufficient mutual trust and respect grew between gang members and McCall that they allowed him to be involved in every aspect of their lives: to go where they went, to see what they saw, to do what they did. ...The first white outsider ever allowed complete access to modern, big-city, black and Latino gangs.
The coincidental timing of McCall s research encompassed some of the most violent episodes ever to grip L.A.: the Rodney King beating and the trial of the police officers involved, the Latasha Harlins murder by a Korean grocer, and the deadliest riot in modern American history.
The events that this writer witnessed and participated in, not only shattered his perceptions of racism in America today, they shattered his entire life. The sequence of some of the events in this stunning account has been shuffled, in order to protect the guilty...the author included.
About The Authors:
M. Rutledge McCall is an investigative nonfiction novelist who has been featured on several television and radio programs, including NBC TODAY , LARRY KING LIVE , KNBC News, BBC Scotland, KFWB News, CNN, News 9 Australia, KNBC NIGHTSIDE COVER STORY , and others.
McCall has also written hundreds of poems, scores of songs, dozens of short stories and several film screenplays. His writing has appeared in local, national and international publications as diverse as The Santa Barbara Independent, The L.A. Weekly, The London Daily Mail, Copley News Service, Music Connection Magazine, The Arizona West Valley View, The Santa Monica Outlook, and others.
Currently, McCall is Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer of internet-based entertainment company, and is in production on several streaming internet tv shows, including Bad Boyz and Teen Spirit , featured on the E-TVNetwork.net.
Film producer Lawrence Bender ( Pulp Fiction , Good Will Hunting , Reservoir Dogs ), is currently in discussions with Miramax Films to make the movie version of SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS...
During his time in the hood, gang members were sending bullet-riddled corpses to the county morgue at the rate of one every 11 hours. After spending months in gang turf on a regular basis, sufficient mutual trust and respect grew between gang members and McCall that they allowed him to be involved in every aspect of their lives: to go where they went, to see what they saw, to do what they did. ...The first white outsider ever allowed complete access to modern, big-city, black and Latino gangs.
The coincidental timing of McCall s research encompassed some of the most violent episodes ever to grip L.A.: the Rodney King beating and the trial of the police officers involved, the Latasha Harlins murder by a Korean grocer, and the deadliest riot in modern American history.
The events that this writer witnessed and participated in, not only shattered his perceptions of racism in America today, they shattered his entire life. The sequence of some of the events in this stunning account has been shuffled, in order to protect the guilty...the author included.
About The Authors:
M. Rutledge McCall is an investigative nonfiction novelist who has been featured on several television and radio programs, including NBC TODAY , LARRY KING LIVE , KNBC News, BBC Scotland, KFWB News, CNN, News 9 Australia, KNBC NIGHTSIDE COVER STORY , and others.
McCall has also written hundreds of poems, scores of songs, dozens of short stories and several film screenplays. His writing has appeared in local, national and international publications as diverse as The Santa Barbara Independent, The L.A. Weekly, The London Daily Mail, Copley News Service, Music Connection Magazine, The Arizona West Valley View, The Santa Monica Outlook, and others.
Currently, McCall is Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer of internet-based entertainment company, and is in production on several streaming internet tv shows, including Bad Boyz and Teen Spirit , featured on the E-TVNetwork.net.
Film producer Lawrence Bender ( Pulp Fiction , Good Will Hunting , Reservoir Dogs ), is currently in discussions with Miramax Films to make the movie version of SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS...
- GenresNonfiction
488 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2000
11 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
M. Rutledge McCall
13 booksAuthor M. Rutledge McCall was born and raised in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He currently resides at the ocean in California with his unfairly beautiful wife and their chatty Flame Point Siamese cat, jackrabbits, an assortment of deer, hawks, quail, turkeys, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, and turkey vultures.
As a writer, ghostwriter, and script doctor of more than 140 projects, McCall’s clientele includes people named in Newsweek and Forbes magazines’ Most Powerful People lists. He has worked with authors whose books have appeared on the best-selling lists of the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and Amazon.com. And he has been featured on TV news shows including NBC’s “Today”, BBC News, PBS, CNN, KNBC News’ “Nightside Cover Story”, PBS/KCET’s “Life and Times: Thinkers, Shakers and Newsmakers”, “Larry King Live”, ABC News 9 and ABC Radio Australia, and others.
He spent late 1984 through early 2000 in feature film and television production management at most of the major legacy film companies and TV networks.
In 2000, his first book, "Slipping Into Darkness: A True Story From the American Ghetto", was published, and was optioned for film by a tech industry double unicorn, setting the course for the rest of his career as an author, ghostwriter and script doctor.
As a writer, ghostwriter, and script doctor of more than 140 projects, McCall’s clientele includes people named in Newsweek and Forbes magazines’ Most Powerful People lists. He has worked with authors whose books have appeared on the best-selling lists of the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and Amazon.com. And he has been featured on TV news shows including NBC’s “Today”, BBC News, PBS, CNN, KNBC News’ “Nightside Cover Story”, PBS/KCET’s “Life and Times: Thinkers, Shakers and Newsmakers”, “Larry King Live”, ABC News 9 and ABC Radio Australia, and others.
He spent late 1984 through early 2000 in feature film and television production management at most of the major legacy film companies and TV networks.
In 2000, his first book, "Slipping Into Darkness: A True Story From the American Ghetto", was published, and was optioned for film by a tech industry double unicorn, setting the course for the rest of his career as an author, ghostwriter and script doctor.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 21, 2018
A raw look into the gangs of South Central LA that helps you understand them.
June 13, 2013
This book is meticulously well researched. Many endorsements by well-known people attest to the fact that this book is something different, unusual. My favorite chapter was 22, where the author basically describes his assessment of the future of Los Angeles in consideration of the big street gang problem in the areas he traversed during his time running with gang members. Page 379 reveals that the author is an idealistic romantic. How such a person was able to conceive, initiate, execute, and survive such an ordeal is nothing short of astounding. Definitely a book worth absorbing its many important lessons and observations.
June 2, 2013
The edition I read has a different cover, updated version. Depth of detail and his knowledge of gangs and the culture is incredible. A riveting read. Very eye-opening, shocking, poignant, even wonderfully poetic in several parts. A must read for understanding racism and gang violence in major cities like Los Angeles. Still highly relevant today. A very brave author.
April 13, 2013
Too gritty for me. Too much gang name dropping, and I couldn't get into it, although others might.
May 13, 2015
Amazingly prescient. Written about incidents over 20 years ago, yet still relevant today. Gritty writing style, somewhat poetic in places, riveting, filled with rich details. Page turner.
May 28, 2025
Stunning work. Brave man! Great sociological treatise on an ongoing major US inner-city callenge. Excellent writing.
March 23, 2017
A little dated, but then it was written several years ago. Actually, it's a pretty amazing book and a really astounding achievement. I don't know if this guy was crazy going into one of the most violent neighborhoods in America at nighttime, alone, on a weekend, and then getting beat up by several gang members, or if he was even crazier for going back down there afterward for a year or so--and actually becoming friends with a lot of these people. What's amazing most of all is that he was there sort of undercover as a journalist and didn't tell them about it until he'd been there for over a year and had made friends and decided he couldn't what he called "steal a story in the night" and slink back home without being honest with these guys about himself. It really has issues that are relevant to this day; that and the writing style made me give it a 5 star. Although 4.5 might be more accurate because it might not really seem germaine today. Interesting, though, that a major tech billionaire optioned the movie rights to it. All in all, a fascinating story and history. Riveting read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews