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The Wanderers
A teenage gang comes of age in the 1960s Bronx. Written when the author was twenty-four, this story was the basis for a major feature film.
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
115 people are currently reading
2169 people want to read
About the author
Richard Price
133 books958 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
March 14, 2016
surprisingly dark and perverse. this is NOT the movie, and is far more akin to Last Exit to Brooklyn. there are many laugh-out-loud moments but they are a distinct minority when compared to the number of disturbing parts. the chapter with the devil-child luring a 'best friend' to his doom is wonderfully chilling. one negative: there is something very off-putting about price's insistence on what i suppose could be considered realistic characterization, and he seems to wallow in squalid situations a bit much. but most of the situations depicted do ring perfectly true. the scene with the kids at the end, realizing it is indeed the end of their lives as they know it....very affecting! overall, the novel's grey tones and utter lack of sentimentality made it rather the opposite of a nostalgic experience.
November 2, 2017
Tough Guys
The Wanderers is a classic late fifties juvenile delinquent/ teenage growing up Bronx tale about a group of Italian kids who ran together, played football, fought with other gangs, tried to score with girls, and such. It’s told in a series of connected chapters focusing on the different guys in the group. What makes it work so well is that Price has a knack for describing more in a few sentences or bits of dialogue than not can pack into a novel.
It is at times particularly crude, nasty, violent but also humorous. There are gang fights and threatened rumbles. There’s the gang of mean bald headed guys who end up enlisting before sobering up. There’s the hand of short guys who show up by the hundreds to disrupt football games. All the dirt comes through too - the domestic violence, the knife fights, the teen pregnancies, the dance halls. It fits in well with depictions of a time.
The Wanderers is a classic late fifties juvenile delinquent/ teenage growing up Bronx tale about a group of Italian kids who ran together, played football, fought with other gangs, tried to score with girls, and such. It’s told in a series of connected chapters focusing on the different guys in the group. What makes it work so well is that Price has a knack for describing more in a few sentences or bits of dialogue than not can pack into a novel.
It is at times particularly crude, nasty, violent but also humorous. There are gang fights and threatened rumbles. There’s the gang of mean bald headed guys who end up enlisting before sobering up. There’s the hand of short guys who show up by the hundreds to disrupt football games. All the dirt comes through too - the domestic violence, the knife fights, the teen pregnancies, the dance halls. It fits in well with depictions of a time.
December 17, 2025
Pungent novel by Price composed of several interwoven short stories about young men and women growing up in Bronx housing projects circa 1962. Most of the characters are members of the 'Wanderers', a gang of sorts, but one of many in the area, and this is no West Side Story! Humorous at times, but rather dark over all. Each story concerns and escapade and the narration shifts from one main character to another. All of the Wanderers struggle with what life has provided thus far, with some living in abusive households, others raised by rather indifferent parents, and most of them thinking about how to get laid.
Price manages to shock here at times, like when a 10 year old boy convinces his 'buddy' to jump from a 7 story building-- homicidal 10 year olds? Jeez! Most of the main characters realize that real life is going to happen pretty soon and their existence as boys in a gang will dissolve. None of them really seem up to the challenge either! Others have compared this to Hubert Selby's work and it did remind me of him. 4 murderous stars!
Price manages to shock here at times, like when a 10 year old boy convinces his 'buddy' to jump from a 7 story building-- homicidal 10 year olds? Jeez! Most of the main characters realize that real life is going to happen pretty soon and their existence as boys in a gang will dissolve. None of them really seem up to the challenge either! Others have compared this to Hubert Selby's work and it did remind me of him. 4 murderous stars!
May 28, 2012
This slice of teenage gang life in 1960’s New York is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. Basically comprising a series of vignettes detailing the character’s existences as they make the journey from rowdy adolescents into adulthood, it’s undoubtedly a brutal read, but one told with lashings of wit and good feeling. Yes, a lot of the behaviour on display is reprehensible, but Price (a writer I’ve never read before, although I have seen his episodes of ‘The Wire’) does a fantastic job of making the characters relatable even as we only see snapshots of their world. This is the rare book which can be described as painfully real and disturbing, but also charming in its own way.
March 29, 2010
This is Richard Price's first book and a tour de force. Price was my creative writing teacher at SUNY Binghamton, and I remember when he sold this book and was throwing pennies around in the parking lot to make a show of his new-found fame. I also remember many gorgeous blondes hanging on his arm at the pub shortly thereafter. Great writer. I just have to hope he eventually put the same amount of effort into developing a better storyline for his soul.
March 20, 2016
"Buddy cinse le spalle di Richie e Joey e li abbracciò con tutte le sue forze, come se più avesse stretto più le cose sarebbero rimaste sempre uguali. Presto si ritrovarono tutti con le braccia attorno alle spalle uno dell'altro, le dita che affondavano nella carne, cercando di formare un cerchio che nulla poteva penetrare: scuola, donne, bambini, matrimoni, madri, padri."
Quando un libro mi piace così incondizionatamente tanto non sono mai sicura se i meriti siano effettivamente del libro o se questo sia sì bello, ma sia anche capitato in un momento particolare in cui fosse più facile per me ritrovarmici. Credo che alla fine siano un po' tutte e due le cose.
Avevo già provato a leggere I Wanderers, un annetto fa, e l'avevo abbandonato dopo qualche decina di pagine. L'avevo trovato scritto molto bene, ma la storia non mi prendeva e i personaggi neppure. Poi l'ho ripreso in mano, qualche giorno fa, e ho trovato la scrittura superlativa, la storia mi ha catturata, i Wanderers sono diventati come amici intimi. E' una storia sul diventare grandi, quella dei Wanderers, sul diventare grandi a New York, nei casamenti popolari del Bronx, tra famiglie rovinate e amicizie sull'orlo del rompersi per sempre, tra ragazze che non si riesce a comprendere e lotte tra gang.
E' un libro bello questo, proprio bello. Peccato solo che di Price si sia pubblicato poco in Italia, perchè merita di essere letto e riletto.
Quando un libro mi piace così incondizionatamente tanto non sono mai sicura se i meriti siano effettivamente del libro o se questo sia sì bello, ma sia anche capitato in un momento particolare in cui fosse più facile per me ritrovarmici. Credo che alla fine siano un po' tutte e due le cose.
Avevo già provato a leggere I Wanderers, un annetto fa, e l'avevo abbandonato dopo qualche decina di pagine. L'avevo trovato scritto molto bene, ma la storia non mi prendeva e i personaggi neppure. Poi l'ho ripreso in mano, qualche giorno fa, e ho trovato la scrittura superlativa, la storia mi ha catturata, i Wanderers sono diventati come amici intimi. E' una storia sul diventare grandi, quella dei Wanderers, sul diventare grandi a New York, nei casamenti popolari del Bronx, tra famiglie rovinate e amicizie sull'orlo del rompersi per sempre, tra ragazze che non si riesce a comprendere e lotte tra gang.
E' un libro bello questo, proprio bello. Peccato solo che di Price si sia pubblicato poco in Italia, perchè merita di essere letto e riletto.
August 30, 2017
Richard Price can capture the feel of a community and its inhabitants like nobody else; I completely believe and inhabit the worlds he's describing. While I was not a 16 year old boy coming of age in the Bronx in 1962, I feel like Price has captured it perfectly. Each chapter focuses on a different member of the "gang" and almost stands alone, but there's a cohesion and an overall arc as well, so it's not just a collection of short stories. Price is the master of dialogue and capturing the dialects of a time and place. His books are "gritty", so I realize they won't be for everyone, but I've loved the two I've read so far. I'm even more of a fan of his now than I was after Clockers.
June 26, 2009
i am rereading this book right now. i think i can honestly say that this is in the top 5 of my favorite books. a book so beautiful in its simplicity and in its story that i want to cry on every page and soak it down with my tears because it reminds me of growing up and it reminds me of what it was like being a kid with half a brain in a place where people wanted you to fight like dogs on a daily basis. where most people would rather see you die than make it anywhere west of harlem avenue. i think, one day, i am going to eat this book, piece by pice, so i can always have it with me.
September 28, 2015
Short stories interlinked to form a cruel look at a New York gang. Much different than the movie, if you've seen that. Also recommended is Last Exit to Brooklyn which, though very different, this book reminded me of.
May 3, 2008
I was so impressed with Richard Price's latest book that I decided to go check out the first. Results where decidedly mixed.
It's definitely the work of a first time author for all the good (Energy! Daring Technique!) and bad (Large Hunks of Horseshit That Go Absolutely Nowhere!) that implies.
The Wanderers tells the story of a youth gang in New York in the early sixties. Basically a more downbeat version of The Outsiders where the characters have major racial hangups. Alot of the problem is with the structure. The novel is broken up into bite sized vignettes each featuring a different member of the gang. The problem is they don't cross paths too much in each-others stories so we never get invested enough to care about them as individuals and there's not enough drive to really carry us from story to story. At the same time the effect isn't radical enough to really feel like something different.
All in all its your average "hoods growing up" story with better then average prose, a few memorably whackadoo set pieces, and a cover coat from William Burroughs.
On that subject I have to say that that quote made me admire Richard Price alot. Not just because of it's pedigree, but because I know if I ever got a quote from Burroughs I'd stop writing all together and spend my time going up to strangers yelling, "You know who liked my book. WILLIAM FUCKING BURROUGHS THAT'S WHO!"
It's definitely the work of a first time author for all the good (Energy! Daring Technique!) and bad (Large Hunks of Horseshit That Go Absolutely Nowhere!) that implies.
The Wanderers tells the story of a youth gang in New York in the early sixties. Basically a more downbeat version of The Outsiders where the characters have major racial hangups. Alot of the problem is with the structure. The novel is broken up into bite sized vignettes each featuring a different member of the gang. The problem is they don't cross paths too much in each-others stories so we never get invested enough to care about them as individuals and there's not enough drive to really carry us from story to story. At the same time the effect isn't radical enough to really feel like something different.
All in all its your average "hoods growing up" story with better then average prose, a few memorably whackadoo set pieces, and a cover coat from William Burroughs.
On that subject I have to say that that quote made me admire Richard Price alot. Not just because of it's pedigree, but because I know if I ever got a quote from Burroughs I'd stop writing all together and spend my time going up to strangers yelling, "You know who liked my book. WILLIAM FUCKING BURROUGHS THAT'S WHO!"
December 5, 2016
The kids are most definitely not alright. For those yearning for the halcyon days of the us in the 1960s, this book is timely reminder that they were bloody awful. It's all been covered. Score but Richard Price is a good writer who makes it all engrossing enough.
Goodreads recommends that I read "Let`s Face It, Charlie Brown" based on having read The Wanderers. I have read Let`s Face It, Brown" and enjoyed it thoroughly, slightly disappointing on the whole teenage pregnancy and gang violence front though. Also fewer words and more Beagle.
Goodreads recommends that I read "Let`s Face It, Charlie Brown" based on having read The Wanderers. I have read Let`s Face It, Brown" and enjoyed it thoroughly, slightly disappointing on the whole teenage pregnancy and gang violence front though. Also fewer words and more Beagle.
February 6, 2023
This book was so strange - the narration, the events, the conversations, were frequently jarring both because of their disturbing nature as well as the dated language. Yet it was funny, touching, profoundly sad, and felt very real. I didn’t exactly love reading it, but it was compelling and I know that it will stay with me. I’m interested in reading more from this author.
July 22, 2012
Oddly enough, this coming of age novel set in the Bronx of the early 60s is pretty true to my own experience in the suburbs of North Florida. Boys will be boys--alas--and the miasmal, hormonal, hard-on-centric atmosphere must be nearly universal. If you can get past what one reviewer calls its "vulgarity," the novel has many things to recommend it (not least its epigraph from Van Morrison: "I will search my very soul, for the lion"). Fans of Richard Price--and he deserves an army of 'em--will see his cinematic realism in embryo. And there is not a better mythopoetic creation of the emotional subsoil that nurtured the birth of early American 60s pop music. PS The movie is awful.
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September 11, 2021the microgenre this comprises along w/ e.g. steelwork, last exit to bk (vignettes of ppl in mid-20th-c. nyc Having a Very Bad Time) is a personal fav. steelwork better by orders of magnitude however
June 30, 2013
Dry characters, unbelievable situations. I really don't see how people could have enjoyed this.
October 25, 2024
Fragmentos de la vida de unos pandilleros adolescentes en la Nueva York de los años 60.
Son como viñetas centradas en los integrantes de una de las pandillas racializadas del Bronx, en este caso italianos, formada por adolescentes que se convierten en adultos precoces.
Aunque el formato del libro es “raro”: diálogos entrecortados, cambios de punto de vista radicales…reproduce muy bien ese ambiente y las inquietudes de los chavales.
Es un libro muy crudo y perturbador, tremendamente sexual y violento. Es imposible empatizar con esa panda de salvajes, pero al mismo tiempo te hace ver que no son más que personas perdidas, víctimas de un entorno y condiciones deprimentes. Recordatorio que los tiempos pasados no fueron mejores, aunque algunos se empeñen en valerse de la nostalgia para edulcorar y fomentar uno supuestos valores antiguos.
ME ha gustado el final, cuando esa transición del adolescente al adulto se va dando en todos los protagonistas (de formas mas o menos brutales o esperanzadoras) y vemos como esa pandilla que daba sentido a sus vidas se desvanece.
Una buena lectura, nada amable pero muy emocionante.
Son como viñetas centradas en los integrantes de una de las pandillas racializadas del Bronx, en este caso italianos, formada por adolescentes que se convierten en adultos precoces.
Aunque el formato del libro es “raro”: diálogos entrecortados, cambios de punto de vista radicales…reproduce muy bien ese ambiente y las inquietudes de los chavales.
Es un libro muy crudo y perturbador, tremendamente sexual y violento. Es imposible empatizar con esa panda de salvajes, pero al mismo tiempo te hace ver que no son más que personas perdidas, víctimas de un entorno y condiciones deprimentes. Recordatorio que los tiempos pasados no fueron mejores, aunque algunos se empeñen en valerse de la nostalgia para edulcorar y fomentar uno supuestos valores antiguos.
ME ha gustado el final, cuando esa transición del adolescente al adulto se va dando en todos los protagonistas (de formas mas o menos brutales o esperanzadoras) y vemos como esa pandilla que daba sentido a sus vidas se desvanece.
Una buena lectura, nada amable pero muy emocionante.
August 21, 2023
I can relate to this story in a lot of ways, although I am about 10-15 years younger than these characters. Growing up without the Internet or cell phones, in a family that just scraped by, where we were only home if it was raining real hard. Our friends were the most important tribe. We spent all of our time together, often fighting kids from other neighborhoods or towns. As we got older, some of the guys got girlfriends, got married, and life changed for everyone. It reminded me of the sense of change, maybe grief of transitioning from a kid to an adult.
June 8, 2017
The dialogue in this book is dynamite. It flows like overheated mercury and you flow with it. It is wity, funny and very genuine. The loose structure of the book might have been a disadvantage but Price used this structure wonderfully.
Beyond the dialogue, there are some pure evil characters that will stay with me. The 10 year old devil Dougie ant Emilio the worst father of the century. It is like reading the childhood of the characters in Sopranos. I ill try to readhis hother books.
Beyond the dialogue, there are some pure evil characters that will stay with me. The 10 year old devil Dougie ant Emilio the worst father of the century. It is like reading the childhood of the characters in Sopranos. I ill try to readhis hother books.
May 19, 2020
I disliked pretty much every character. Not one was a person I’d want anything to do with. But in less than five pages I was living in their world, their reality having been made my own. Price is a master of his domain. He understands the art of elision, suggestion, compression. How to shape the negative space of words. How to construct allegorical drama from hyper-specific genre elements. I learned a lot from reading this.
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November 8, 2025Richard Price’s debut novel shows an impressive ability to balance the gritty reality of his teenage protagonists, specifically their early ‘60s Bronx environment, with a seemingly sincere - albeit devoid of any sentimentality - exploration of their loss of innocence, with humor at times and heartbreak at others.
October 14, 2025
“They always went around moving their lips and squinting like they were figuring out a calculus problem.”
“His teeth looked like a set of broken dishes.”
“His teeth looked like a set of broken dishes.”
January 4, 2026
I can’t believe I read this book when I was 14 and my school allowed it.
December 12, 2025
I really enjoyed the wanderers. I have pictures in my mind of what my dad’s childhood looked like in the 60’s. I’m sure he had some friends like each member of the wanderers. I liked all the guys and their different family lives, their girl troubles (which I found very relatable for teens) and the group dynamics. Buddy and Despie, Richie and C. Eugene trying to impress his father with his sexual exploits. Perry and his piece of shit tough guy dad.
This book was like The Outsiders on steroids. And the outsiders was my favorite book as a 12 year old. Gotta check out Clockers by Richard Price cuz I quite enjoyed this book.
This book was like The Outsiders on steroids. And the outsiders was my favorite book as a 12 year old. Gotta check out Clockers by Richard Price cuz I quite enjoyed this book.
August 17, 2007
When I was in 9th grade or so, my big brother, who was two years older than I, bought this. I think it was a paperback original. Either way, his edition was a paperback and had a NATIONAL LAMPOON-style illustration on the cover. (The LAMPOON then had paintings of almost photographic realism. This cover was that sort of painting, showing a character in denim on an urban street.) My brother (who'd seen AMERICAN GRAFITTI five times in the theatre) loved it. He lived like the characters in the book. He urged me to read it. I did, and have to say that, ever since, when I notice a Richard Price novel coming out, I've taken notice. This was Price's first novel, I think. It was the basis for THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH, which I don't think I've ever seen. It involves gangs in Brooklyn. I can't remember if this is set in the past, but if it was present-day (which, of course, was 1975) it made me think of the fifties. Richard Price's realism informs the novel, but over the decades, his books have become much more intricate. This is a clear story told with a certain affection for the characters. It was a great introduction to Richard Price, who really should be more famous than he is.
[Added a half-hour later -- I realize now this was set in the fifties, because there was a TV ad for the movie which had a doo-wop group singing these words in a style reminiscent of the Broadway musical, GREASE: "THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH/Is a moo-oo-oovie/About how life was/In the fih-ih-ifties/I don't mean to boast/but you'll like it the most/THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH, FLATBUSH, FLATBUSH/Rated P. Gee-ee." I'd love to know who sang that.]
[Added a half-hour later -- I realize now this was set in the fifties, because there was a TV ad for the movie which had a doo-wop group singing these words in a style reminiscent of the Broadway musical, GREASE: "THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH/Is a moo-oo-oovie/About how life was/In the fih-ih-ifties/I don't mean to boast/but you'll like it the most/THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH, FLATBUSH, FLATBUSH/Rated P. Gee-ee." I'd love to know who sang that.]
June 22, 2015
Sometimes an author introduces you to a set of characters that stay with you for days after you finish their novel. The Wanderers has such a cast.
It is Richard Price's first book, published in 1974, and was written when he was a writing student, almost as a series of interconnected short stories. He went on to write brilliant books such as Clockers and worked on The Wire, but this first book still stands out as punchy, authentic snapshot of 60s street life in New York.
The setting is the North Bronx of the early 1960s, and the characters and tales leap off the page. It's a moment and milieu that no longer exits, of course, the Bronx having changed so much, but it is one that Price knows intimately.
The Wanderers is a gang, one of many in the neighbourhood, and the principals are all around 17 years old. Guys like Joey and Richie and Perry, and the chapters recount their adventures hanging out, fighting, partying, trying to lose their cherry. The adults are all seen from the teenagers' point of view, and they make for an unforgettable menagerie of adult tyranny, from the violent bullying dad Emilio to Perry's overweight and tragic mom.
The stories are raucous and moving, and the dialogue – Price's speciality – zaps along with wit and obscenities. A theme to the stories emerges towards of the end of the book, which is that the guys and gals are all on the cusp of adulthood and as pregnancies and deaths occur, it is time to move on. But there is an identity and security in the gang and their turf, and the characters dread leaving them behind.
Much as I did on finishing this vibrant blast of a novel.
It is Richard Price's first book, published in 1974, and was written when he was a writing student, almost as a series of interconnected short stories. He went on to write brilliant books such as Clockers and worked on The Wire, but this first book still stands out as punchy, authentic snapshot of 60s street life in New York.
The setting is the North Bronx of the early 1960s, and the characters and tales leap off the page. It's a moment and milieu that no longer exits, of course, the Bronx having changed so much, but it is one that Price knows intimately.
The Wanderers is a gang, one of many in the neighbourhood, and the principals are all around 17 years old. Guys like Joey and Richie and Perry, and the chapters recount their adventures hanging out, fighting, partying, trying to lose their cherry. The adults are all seen from the teenagers' point of view, and they make for an unforgettable menagerie of adult tyranny, from the violent bullying dad Emilio to Perry's overweight and tragic mom.
The stories are raucous and moving, and the dialogue – Price's speciality – zaps along with wit and obscenities. A theme to the stories emerges towards of the end of the book, which is that the guys and gals are all on the cusp of adulthood and as pregnancies and deaths occur, it is time to move on. But there is an identity and security in the gang and their turf, and the characters dread leaving them behind.
Much as I did on finishing this vibrant blast of a novel.
February 11, 2019
This one wasn't great. I did finish it, and it definitely has some merit - the character portraits can be incisive and that's kind of all this book is. The issue for me is that the author just lays out all that insight without any real skill or finesse. It's not earned.
I'm not invested in the characters. It's hard enough to care about a bunch of teenage boys harassing people, date raping, and destroying their own friendships with a toxic masculinity they resent in their own fathers. Just telling me they're sad and scared and angry a paragraph after you introduce them isn't going to make me care.
I guess for someone who buys into that nostalgic "back when men were men" nonsense might enjoy this book and even find it bittersweet, and the characters are at least somewhat well-rounded. They were just boring to me personally. The women were to a T sexy lamps and caricature nagging mother figures, which makes it hard for me to trust any insight the author may have. I mean, I guess you could make a case that his obsession with men would make him even more of an expert on them, but again that's just not a person whose opinions or insight I need.
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with this one.
I'm not invested in the characters. It's hard enough to care about a bunch of teenage boys harassing people, date raping, and destroying their own friendships with a toxic masculinity they resent in their own fathers. Just telling me they're sad and scared and angry a paragraph after you introduce them isn't going to make me care.
I guess for someone who buys into that nostalgic "back when men were men" nonsense might enjoy this book and even find it bittersweet, and the characters are at least somewhat well-rounded. They were just boring to me personally. The women were to a T sexy lamps and caricature nagging mother figures, which makes it hard for me to trust any insight the author may have. I mean, I guess you could make a case that his obsession with men would make him even more of an expert on them, but again that's just not a person whose opinions or insight I need.
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with this one.
February 26, 2010
hmmm... i dont really know what to say about this book, it is hands down theeee most vulgar and what most will say disgusting! it was a very entertaining book about a young teenage gang growing up in the bronx. these kids deal with everything from trying to get laid to miget fights to getting a girl pregnat and a mother dieing. they go through these hardships together and i would say that they are true friends. they stick by eachother no matter what! i would have to say my favorite part was the duckyboys(a miget gang) fighting the wanderers and the delbombers(two football teams from the bronx). this was halarious at one point joeys dad picked up a midget and swong him around as a weapon. i recomend this book to those who enjoy sex drugs and rock n' roll even though there isnt one referance to rock n' roll in the whole book!
July 26, 2010
This book seemed dated. It's a growing up story from the 60's but very violent. What's odd was families having both parents and sitting down to dinner together despite their rotten lives. Not the best work of Richard Price.
May 27, 2016
everything is so fucked up and i hate you and i hate me but most of all i hate richard price, he's a douche bag.
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