From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Oscar Hijuelos comes a “frank, gritty, vibrant, and wholly absorbing” ( Booklist , starred review) young adult novel set in the late 1960s about a haunting choice and an unforgettable journey of identity, mis-identity, and all that we take with us when we run away. Now with a stunning new look! He didn’t say good-bye. He didn’t leave a phone number. And he didn’t plan on coming back—ever. Fifteen-year-old Rico Fuentes has had enough of life in Harlem, where his fair complexion—inherited from an Irish grandfather—keeps him caught between two cultures without belonging to either. He pours his outsider feelings into a comic book Dark Dude , with his friend Jimmy illustrating. But when Gilberto, who’s always looked out for Rico, moves to Wisconsin and Jimmy loses himself to an insidious habit, Rico decides enough is enough. With Jimmy in tow, Rico runs away to the Midwest in search of Gilberto. The heavily white community feels worlds away from Harlem, and for the first time, Rico sees what it’s like to blend in—no longer the “dark dude” or the punching bag for the whole neighborhood. But the less energy Rico needs to put into proving he’s Latino, the less he feels like one. And the more he gets to know the people around him, the more it’s clear that a change in location doesn’t change human nature—and that there’s no such thing as a perfect community. Faced with the truth that there are things that can’t be cut loose or forgotten, things that keep him from ever having an ordinary white kid’s life, Rico must decide whether he can make a home in the place he ran to…or the one he ran from. " Dark Dude 's journey toward self-discovery is a compelling read. Today's teens will be thrilled to discover a voice as authentic and accomplished as Oscar Hijuelos's" - Ellen Hopkins, New York Times bestselling author of Crank and Glass Oscar Hijuelos (1951–2013) was a first-generation Cuban American and the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; he also won the Rome Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature. He wrote several novels, including Dark Dude , The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love , and Beautiful Maria of My Soul . Chapter One one WELL, EVEN IF they say life can be shitty, you really don’t know the half of it until you’ve dug up an outhouse. This was the fourth time in twelve months that I’d gotten down into the nitty-gritty and goop of it — and I’d had enough, for crying out loud. But I was doing it for my old neighborhood bro Gilberto, not just ’cause he’d have smacked me in the head if I didn’t, but as a thank-you-man for letting me stay on his farm for so long. That’s right, a farm. Anyway, let me tell you about how this New York City kid ended up around the corner from where he lived, about a thousand miles away, in Wisconsin. First of all, you’ve got to be hearing music just now — not with corny-assed violins and trumpets, but maybe some cool Motown — you know, something way better than the kind of diddly country or polka music you can go nuts trying to avoid on the radios out here. Then you got to imagine time going backwards , and everything slipping into reverse, not to when there were dinosaurs or medieval-assed knights trying to slay dragons, but just a few years. Now picture me on my stoop, on a hot New York City summer afternoon, with two comic books—a Spider-Man and a Fantastic Four —rolled up in my back pocket and dying to be read. While some kids are playing stickball down the street, I’m fused to the stoop ’cause I’m supposed to be going to the A&P with my Moms, but she’s been taking forever to get back from wherever she’s been. I’m on my former altar boy best behavior, despite the comics I’ve just “borrowed” from the stationery store, and I have a pious look on my face, the one I always put on while wishing I could be doing something really devious instead, like tossing water balloons or dumping out a full garbage can at unsuspecting strangers from the rooftop, stuff I never have the nerve to do. So I was just sitting there when my pal Gilberto Flores, all six foot two of him, came bopping up the hill from Amsterdam Avenue, wearing the biggest grin I’d ever seen in my life. No one else looked like Gilberto. He wore a giant Afro, had a scar down the side of his face, big ears, and smiled all the time. I was always glad to see him. “So, Gilberto, why you looking so happy?” I asked him. He could barely contain himself. “Rico, my man,” he said, a toothpick between his lips, and stroking his goatee the way he did whenever a girl with a nice butt went walking by, “I’m rich!” “What do you mean, ‘rich’?” I asked, used to hearing all kinds of BS from him. He strode over to me and planted one of his size-twelve feet on the highest step. “You remember that lottery ticket I bought a few weeks back at Jack’s stationery?” “Sure, I was with you,” I said, nodding. “Well,” he started, bending his lanky frame