"Jones pursued two successful careers in Europe: professional basketball player and banker. If you met him, you might not guess he spent his teen years as a heroin dealer in New York. His memoir, written with Naison (history & African American studies, Fordham Univ.) focuses on his experiences growing up in a Bronx public housing project, playing serious basketball, ignoring school, dealing and doing drugs, and eventually lucking into a series of experiences that led to a professional basketball career in Europe. Jones credits his success to his supportive family, coaches, and neighborhood elders, but ultimately his is a tale of luck. The young Jones makes rash decisions, avoids his responsibilities, lies, and steals but also encounters many unlikely second chances. In another writer's hands, this blessed triumph-over-adversity story line might be trite and irritating, but Jones draws readers in with his direct, conversational style, and the tale is gripping even though readers know it will end well. VERDICT Recommended for memoir lovers and anyone interested in a first-person perspective on 1960s-era urban adolescence."
—Library Journal

"The writing style of The Rat That Got Away drew me into the book from the first chapter. Allen Jones and Mark Naison paint a vivid portrait leaving nothing to the imagination. This book allows you to journey into the street life from the safety of your own home. This is a must read for any fan or urban literature. Real people in Real life situations. It don't get no realer than this."
—Shannon Holmes

"[The Rat That Got Away] is canny and intelligent, eloquent and wise. And gripping. And terrifying. And depressing. And uplifting. The grind of ghetto life, the needlessness of racism and its extraordinary oppression. The crucial role of fathers, sports coaches and other mentors captivated me - the possibilities therein for transcending racial and class poverty. But without naivety."—Michael Rosen, author of Where Else But Here:Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse

" . . . An unsentimental portrait of the South Bronx."—The Berkshire Eagle

"Follows a boy of the streets into a man of the world."
—Greg Donaldson, author of Zebratown

"An enlightening commentary about an African American man who should have fallen through the cracks given his early adult experiences, but did not."
—Alford A. Young, Jr., University of Michigan

"The Rat That Got Away is that most prized of literary finds: an original story. . . . This book is a shot from way beyond the three point line that comes up nothing but net."
—William Jelani Cobb, To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic

"The Rat That Got Away is a story of triumph. It is must reading for anyone with an interest in urban studies."
—Henry Louis Taylor, Jr., University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

"This is a startling book. The most compelling parts of the book are Jones's tales about how heroin, and its use, got such an insidious hold on so many people, promising them wealth and/or a feeling of power, but often ending in death. But the most amazing story is how family and community saved his life."
—Peter Derrick, Bronx County Historical Society