MAKES ME WANNA HOLLER

Hopelessness, anguish, and anger seethe through this riveting account, by Washington Post reporter McCall, of one man's roller- coaster rise from the violent, self-annihilating street life of his generation to a respectable position above the fray. Although raised in a solid working-class neighborhood in Portsmouth, Virginia, McCall as a 70's adolescent was not free from the hazards of his and other black communities. His mother and stepfather provided a stable home, but gang-controlled streets brought him into never-ending contact with violence and crime. As fistfights turned into gun battles and sweet-talking into gang- rape, he did his part, stealing an ice-cream truck and, while a college student, shooting an adversary point-blank in the chest. A father at 17, he turned to stickups for cash—until an arrest for armed robbery earned him a stretch in prison. There, he found more positive role models, straightening out enough to gain parole and reenter college in journalism. Jobs were not available for an ex- con, however, until an internship with a local paper turned into real work. An offer from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution followed, and McCall began a new life there with his pregnant wife-to-be; but with racial pressures no less intense in Atlanta and domestic trouble brewing, he began to lose faith, until his honesty paid off and he was hired by the Post—an achievement muted by the knowledge that most of his former friends were dead, dying, or serving time. For any who might think race relations and conditions in African-American communities have been improving since the hard-won civil-rights victories of the 50's and 60's: a devastating, full- bodied reality check.