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Imamu Jones #2
New Guys Around the Block
Out on bail after an arrest on suspicion of being a "phantom" burglar while visiting in Harlem, Imamu Jones becomes involved in a mystery which includes sophisticated Olivette, shy Pierre, and menacing Iggy
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Rosa Guy
29 books78 followersRosa Cuthbert Guy (1925-2012) was an American writer.
Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy moved to the United States with her family at the age of seven, where they settled in New York in 1932. Soon after, her parents, Henry and Audrey Cuthbert, died. After, she and her sister went to many foster homes. She quit school at age fourteen and took a job to help support her family.
During World War II she joined the American Negro Theatre. She studied theatre and writing at the University of New York.
Guy wrote a number of books aimed at young adults. Many of her books reflect on the dependability of family members who love and care for one other. Her works include: Bird at My Window (1966), Children of Longing (1971), The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), The Disappearance (1979), Mirror of Her Own (1981), A Measure of Time (1983), and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987).
She is divorced from Warner Guy, with whom she had a son, Warner Guy Jr.
Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy moved to the United States with her family at the age of seven, where they settled in New York in 1932. Soon after, her parents, Henry and Audrey Cuthbert, died. After, she and her sister went to many foster homes. She quit school at age fourteen and took a job to help support her family.
During World War II she joined the American Negro Theatre. She studied theatre and writing at the University of New York.
Guy wrote a number of books aimed at young adults. Many of her books reflect on the dependability of family members who love and care for one other. Her works include: Bird at My Window (1966), Children of Longing (1971), The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), The Disappearance (1979), Mirror of Her Own (1981), A Measure of Time (1983), and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987).
She is divorced from Warner Guy, with whom she had a son, Warner Guy Jr.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 10, 2023
I read the paperback edition in the Penguin Books Plus Thriller series (published in 1989) and, I must say, the cover artwork by Caroline Binch sums up the characters of “the super-cool” Olivette and his little brother Pierre perfectly. The story is a follow-up to Rosa Guy's earlier The Disappearance but it is not necessary to have read that book to appreciate New Guys Around the Block. It receives a few mentions in the text and they are self explanatory. Our hero, Imamu – or John Jones, to give him his real name – is a Black teenager growing up in Harlem with an appetite for detective work, when he is not worrying about his alcoholic mother and his own survival in a world of drug abusers, drug dealers, petty criminals and young violent men.
The story begins impressively as Imamu sets the scene around him. His mother is in hospital recovering after collapsing in a drunken stupor. He desperately wants to clean up their decrepit apartment before she has to come home but money is always short and friends are rarely reliable. His ambitions have been roused after a short time in a foster home in Brooklyn where there were no slums, or winos slumped in the gutters, and the Aimsleys were a contented, hard-working, fairly happy family. He desperately wants to share their lifestyle, have a job, and live without the need to check who might be behind him on the street. Then three people appear in the neighbourhood.
Young Iggy – a character from The Disappearance – is released from prison after a fellow inmate, Muhammed, supposedly confesses to Iggy's crime. That is shortly before Muhammed is silenced by a fatal knife wound. It seems hardly coincidental that Iggy's weapon of choice is a knife. Then Olivette and his younger brother Pierre appear. Olivette is tall, handsome and intelligent. Very intelligent. He wins Imamu's friendship with his charm and apparent almost saintly perfectionism. Is he a Cool Hand Luke come to the smelly hot streets of a Harlem ghetto to spread the Good Word? To Imamu he seems to be the true friend he has always needed, yet he sometimes seems to look down on other people and has an aloofness, especially to the pushy, sexually explicit and foul-mouthed Gladys. Pierre seems to be in awe of his older brother. Or could it be fear?
The plot twists on. A series of burglaries takes place in the wealthier white part of the city and the police seem convinced that Iggy is behind it, especially when one of the white residents is brutally assaulted. Imamu is not convinced. He knows Iggy is a vicious thug but he could never plan such complex crimes. Imamu persuades Olivette – very easily – to join him in finding out who is the real criminal.
There are many minor characters who have tasty cameo appearances. It's not unlike a Dickens novel in that respect. The ultimately quite friendly police officer Otis Brown; Olivette and Pierre's flirtatious mother, Flame Larouche, who has her own family protection agenda; genial Al Stacy the numbers racketeer, outwardly nice but you wouldn't choose to mess with him; tubby Furgerson, lazy and affable; and always Iggy, as charming as a sewer rat. It is Olivette who points out the extent to which everyone in this racially suppressed New York environment is being forced to find their own ways of coping, some of which are self-destructive and some are criminal, and Olivette has his own share, his own history.
Is the ending unsatisfactory when the wrong boy dies? I think that is a part of what Olivette has been thinking. If you have an oppressed society which the oppressors believe is wholly criminal, does it matter who dies and who survives? Imamu, I am certain, thinks differently. Survival in the ghetto is day to day uncertainty, day to day fearfulness. He has seen his own promised land with the Aimsleys. He wants to get out and have a share of it. There is another sequel, And I Heard a Bird Sing, I wonder if he does?
The story begins impressively as Imamu sets the scene around him. His mother is in hospital recovering after collapsing in a drunken stupor. He desperately wants to clean up their decrepit apartment before she has to come home but money is always short and friends are rarely reliable. His ambitions have been roused after a short time in a foster home in Brooklyn where there were no slums, or winos slumped in the gutters, and the Aimsleys were a contented, hard-working, fairly happy family. He desperately wants to share their lifestyle, have a job, and live without the need to check who might be behind him on the street. Then three people appear in the neighbourhood.
Young Iggy – a character from The Disappearance – is released from prison after a fellow inmate, Muhammed, supposedly confesses to Iggy's crime. That is shortly before Muhammed is silenced by a fatal knife wound. It seems hardly coincidental that Iggy's weapon of choice is a knife. Then Olivette and his younger brother Pierre appear. Olivette is tall, handsome and intelligent. Very intelligent. He wins Imamu's friendship with his charm and apparent almost saintly perfectionism. Is he a Cool Hand Luke come to the smelly hot streets of a Harlem ghetto to spread the Good Word? To Imamu he seems to be the true friend he has always needed, yet he sometimes seems to look down on other people and has an aloofness, especially to the pushy, sexually explicit and foul-mouthed Gladys. Pierre seems to be in awe of his older brother. Or could it be fear?
The plot twists on. A series of burglaries takes place in the wealthier white part of the city and the police seem convinced that Iggy is behind it, especially when one of the white residents is brutally assaulted. Imamu is not convinced. He knows Iggy is a vicious thug but he could never plan such complex crimes. Imamu persuades Olivette – very easily – to join him in finding out who is the real criminal.
There are many minor characters who have tasty cameo appearances. It's not unlike a Dickens novel in that respect. The ultimately quite friendly police officer Otis Brown; Olivette and Pierre's flirtatious mother, Flame Larouche, who has her own family protection agenda; genial Al Stacy the numbers racketeer, outwardly nice but you wouldn't choose to mess with him; tubby Furgerson, lazy and affable; and always Iggy, as charming as a sewer rat. It is Olivette who points out the extent to which everyone in this racially suppressed New York environment is being forced to find their own ways of coping, some of which are self-destructive and some are criminal, and Olivette has his own share, his own history.
Is the ending unsatisfactory when the wrong boy dies? I think that is a part of what Olivette has been thinking. If you have an oppressed society which the oppressors believe is wholly criminal, does it matter who dies and who survives? Imamu, I am certain, thinks differently. Survival in the ghetto is day to day uncertainty, day to day fearfulness. He has seen his own promised land with the Aimsleys. He wants to get out and have a share of it. There is another sequel, And I Heard a Bird Sing, I wonder if he does?
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