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"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 The Rat That Got Away is an inspiring story of one man's odyssey from the streets of the Bronx to
a life as a professional athlete and banker in Europe, but it is also provides a unique vantage point
on the history of the Bronx and sheds new light on a neglected period in American urban history.
Allen Jones grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx at a time—the 1950s—when
that neighborhood was a place of optimism and hope for upwardly mobile Black and Latino
families. Brought up in a two-parent household, with many neighborhood mentors, Jones led
an almost charmed life as a budding basketball star until his teen years, when his once peaceful
neighborhood was torn by job losses, white flight, and a crippling drug epidemic. Drawn into the
heroin trade, first as a user, then as a dealer, Jones spent four months on Rikers Island, where
he experienced a crisis of conscience and a determination to turn his life around. Sent to a
New England prep school upon his release, Jones used his basketball skills and street smarts
to forge a life outside the Bronx, first as a college athlete in the South, then as a professional
basketball player, radio personality, and banker in Europe.
A brilliant storyteller with a gift for dialogue, Jones brings Bronx streets and housing projects
to life as places of possibility as well as tragedy, where racism and economic hardship never
completely suppressed the resilient spirit of its residents. A book that will change the way
people view the South Bronx.
| ALLEN JONES, born in the Bronx, is a manager for foreign currency exchange at Dexia Banque
Internationale at Luxembourg. |
| MARK NAISON is Professor of African American Studies and History at Fordham University,
where he also directs the Bronx African American History Project. He is the author of three
books, including White Boy: A Memoir. |
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