Black Cracker - Paperback

by Josh Alan Friedman (Author), Wyatt Doyle (Editor)

South School, 1962: The last segregated school in New York. Their teacher moonlights on "Lawrence Welk," the lady principal wears boxing gloves, and the student body is all-Negro . . . except for first grader Josh Friedman. He's white, but he's working on it. The acclaimed author of TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED and TALES OF TIMES SQUARE returns with a one-of-a-kind autobiographical novel - "a memoir you can't accuse of lies." Center stage in the unflinching and frequently hilarious funhouse tour of Friedman's Long Island boyhood is a rogues' gallery that includes Bobo, precocious third-grade dropout and boy prince of the ghetto; his bumbling (and alarmingly potent) ne'er-do-well Uncle Limpy; Mumsy, the smelliest shoeshine boy in Penn Station; Mrs. O'Leary, the menacing Irish nanny; her son, Drake, an etiquette-obsessed, switchblade-totin' clammer overwhelmed by the tides of racial progress; and the impoverished Wilshires, the bone-white, nigger-hatin'-est crackers in town. At once heartbreaking and hysterically funny, BLACK CRACKER delivers a fearless account of adventures in the now-forgotten poor Black shantytowns of Long Island, exploring the singular ugliness of racism, the intrigue of janitorial whodunits, the tragic limits of friendship, and the inexplicable seductive powers of croco-print footwear.

Author Biography

In 1987, writer-guitarist Josh Alan Friedman sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads (the Crossroads of the World--Broadway & 42nd Street) and moved to Texas. He'd just written TALES OF TIMES SQUARE, a cult classic. An Expanded Edition with new chapters was recently released, while the still-unfinished movie of TALES has played 35 film festivals. Josh's latest book is BLACK CRACKER, the story of his tumultuous childhood as the only white boy at Long Island's last segregated school. In 2008: TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED: COMING CLEAN IN THE DIRTY WORLD OF BLUES AND ROCK 'N' ROLL. Before that: WHEN SEX WAS DIRTY; I, GOLDSTEIN: MY SCREWED LIFE (with Al Goldstein); NOW DIG THIS: THE UNSPEAKABLE WRITINGS OF TERRY SOUTHERN (co-editor). Josh also set off satirical fires and lawsuits as writer-half of the Friedman Bros, the most feared cartooning duo of the late '70s and '80s. Two anthologies remain in print, featuring the art of Josh's brother, Drew Friedman: WARTS AND ALL, and ANY SIMILARITY TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. On the music front, as "Josh Alan," he barnstormed the state of Texas for 20 years, rocking whole arenas with his Guild D-40. Copping three DALLAS OBSERVER Music Awards for Best Acoustic Act, he released four albums: FAMOUS & POOR, THE WORST!, BLACKS 'N' JEWS (the title of which became a documentary on Josh's life) and JOSH ALAN BAND.