Publisher Description
“T.J. English has the mastered the hybrid narrative art form of social history and underworld thriller. The Savage City is a truly gripping read filled with unexpected twists and turns.” —Douglas Brinkley, author of The Great Deluge
In The Savage City, T.J. English, author of the New York Times bestselling blockbuster Havana Nocturne, takes readers back to a frightening place in a dark time of violence and urban chaos: New York City in the 1960s and early ’70s. As he did in his acclaimed true crime masterwork, The Westies, English focuses on the rot on the Big Apple in this stunning tale of race, murder, and a generation on the edge—as he interweaves the real-life sagas of a corrupt cop, a militant Black Panther, and an innocent young African American man framed by the NYPD for a series of crimes, including a brutal and sensational double murder.
Download and start listening now!
“This is book is far better than I had originally expected. I was hoping it would give me some insight into the environment around which my parents grew up that lead them to join the Black/Brown Power Movement – it did that and so much more. This book is a fascinating documentation of the generational shift that occurred as the Civil Rights Movement moved north and entered into metropolitan areas. It is not just a tale of corruption and violent revolution, but a city at a time when the racial tensions boiled over and exploded. The South had Jim Crow, the North had a system of racial oppression that was in its own ways more profound and devastating to the underprivileged communities. If this book does nothing other than debunk the continued social lie that the South is where racism was rooted, it would be enough. Though somewhat of a true-life crime novel, this book should stand alongside The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and other such works devoted to explaining how alive and well institutional racism still is in contemporary America. If people don’t make the connection between then and now, they have missed English’s entire point. The detail and thorough of this book is amazing and the way that English gives the living history of a generation through the real-life, personal experiences of three individuals is brilliant. It is an eye-opener and is definitively on my recommended reading list.”
—
Lumumba (5 out of 5 stars)
