\"The publication of this new edition is not just an editorial innovation. It is a major event in American literary history.\" - Andrew Delbanco, New Republic
\"A visceral and unforgettable account of a young black man\'s coming of age in the American south in the bitter decades before the civil rights movement.\" - Guardian
\"In this poignant and disturbing book one of the most gifted of America\'s younger writers turns from fiction to tell the story of his own life during the nineteen years he lived in the South.\" - New York Times
\"One of the most important literary talents of contemporary America.\" - New York Times
\"Superb. . . . A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives.\" - New York Times Book Review
\"The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.\" - Kirkus Reviews