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About
From the Pulitzer Prize-winner Oscar Hijuelos comes a novel about identity, circumstance, and a way in which we all struggle to accept our true selves. In gritty, clear prose, Dark Dude captures New York City in the 1960s—violent, decaying, slouching away from the American dream—and brings to life a character who has no choice but to head out west in search of something better. But, when Rico and his ex-druggie friend arrive in Wisconsin, they discover that picket-fenced apple-pie people can be just as violent and judgmental as the neighbors they left behind. No longer an outsider by appearances, Rico is forced to swallow an uncomfortable truth: he is still an outsider.
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Reviews
"[The] themes are classic-alienation, the search for identity-but his approach is pure Hijuelos: Cuban-American, musical and very, very funny…the inevitability of the conclusion doesn't matter: it's the smooth, jazzy flow of the narration, the slides between Rico's rootlessness and the book's strong sense of place that count."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Hijuelos] proves himself to be a powerful, adept storyteller for teens…Frank, gritty, vibrant, and wholly absorbing, Rico's story will hold teens with its celebration of friendship and its fundamental questions about life purpose, family responsibility, and the profound ways that experience shapes identity."
Booklist (starred review)
"With parallels to Huck Finn's journey, Rico's story of self-discovery is skillfully chronicled by Armando Durán, whose ease with accents is noteworthy. He seamlessly delivers the many Spanish phrases interspersed throughout the text and conveys Rico's sense of alienation and bewilderment when he experiences injustice and random violence in the rural Midwestern community."
AudioFile