"Morales wrestles with nothing less than the parameters of the human soul."--Luis Alberto Urrea "You will not forget Drowning Tucson . The characters will haunt you, and even after you know the stories are getting to you, you won't be able to stop reading this book." --Leslie Marmon SilkoSet in Tucson's toughest neighborhoods during the late 1980s, this riveting debut follows the disintegration of the Nunez family and the people whose paths they cross. From young gangbangers to crooked cops, and from murderous vigilantes to prostitutes plying their trade along the "Miracle Mile," each character's destiny is linked by crushing poverty, the brutal codes of the street, and the harsh nature of the desert. In this place of both drought and flood, "civilization" is every bit as dangerous as its surroundings. Like a southwest version of HBO's The Wire , this heartrending novel is an episodic portrait of a desperate, violent America, populated by characters as lethal as they are sympathetic. In this vividly rendered novel-in-stories, Morales depicts desperate people trapped by poverty and circumstance. Set in the rough neighborhoods of Tucson during the late 1980s, the stories feature gang members, prostitutes, a closeted army officer, and an abused young wife and mother, among others. The neighborhood playground, Reid Park, is the site of a murderous Easter egg hunt and a hypocritical preacher’s cynical show at turning gang members into Christians. Explosive violence is always a possibility, and Morales writes such visceral descriptions of gang beat-downs that some chapters are difficult to read. In perhaps the most affecting story, “Rainbow,” a young prostitute, abandoned at age 15 by her mother, returns to the underground drainage tunnnels where she first stayed, under the protection of a homeless Vietnam vet, when she was forced to live on the streets. Now, however, the tunnels are considered the territory of the Latin Kings, and her fate at their hands is as heartbreaking as it is frightening. These are brutal and frequently riveting stories of the mean streets rendered in highly emotional, cinematic language. --Joanne Wilkinson The bleakly human debut of the new Bukowski. --Esquire Drowning Tucson is desperate, full of misery of the degree you might expect reading turn-of-the-century Russian literature...[and] more than merely notable. It's a beautiful fever dream deftly actualized. --Bookslut The meek don't inherit the Earth in Aaron Michael Morales' unsettling debut novel, Drowning Tucson . They'd be lucky just to cling to it until it's shoveled over their faces. --Tucson Weekly Aaron Michael Morales can write like an artful dervish. [ Drowning Tucson ] is gripping and yet...often so distressing. The image of drowning, of Tucson inundated, appears again and again, as a cleansing yet destructive force. --North American Review Morales's vision is disturbing, haunting, though sometimes even strangely hopeful...his talent is considerable. You won't ever look at Tucson in quite the same way again. And you won't rest easily until the last page is turned. --January Magazine Born in 1976, Aaron Michael Morales grew up in Tucson. At age ten, he became a paperboy for the Arizona Daily Star and since then his jobs have ranged from working in a car parts factory to bartending in Chicago's Oak Park neighborhood. He currently teaches writing and literature at Indiana State University and is working on his second novel. Visit aaronmichaelmorales.com Used Book in Good Condition