Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country (Modern Library Paperbacks)

"When I first started going to New Haven," writes William Finnegan, "I was taken on a tour of the city's neighborhoods by two black residents. Their conversation reminded me of others I've heard--in countries suffering from chronic guerrilla war."

Cold New World depicts the lives of American teenagers and young adults, struggling to hang onto what little they've got. They are part of a growing underclass whose lives have become saturated with drugs and violence. Whether he's talking to an African American drug dealer who plies his trade in the shadow of Yale or a young woman caught up in the feud between two rival skinhead gangs in the northernmost suburbs of Los Angeles, Finnegan brings his subjects to life on the page with a compassion that doesn't undermine any of his bluntness about their desperate conditions. You may not like what Cold New World has to say about the state of the nation, but it's a book that you ignore at your peril.