Manchild in the Promised Land

I remember reading this when I was perhaps 10 or 12 years old. I don't think I really understood much of it, partly because I was a white, middle-class suburban kid trying to relate to Harlem, and partly because it had references to sex, drugs and crime that I just didn't get...didn't relate to at all. But it made a definite impact on me, to the point where I sought it out and re-read it...oh 40-45 years later. I still can't say I know Claude's world but I understand it more now than I did then.

I know that this book has been in print a long time, and it has been suggested that it was a "classic." And so that prompted me to read it just so that I could say I had. After I finished it, I came away with several thoughts: 1. The events are just a little bit too unlikely. a. An eight-year-old gone from home for weeks at a time/hit by a bus / thrown into the river / hit by a car/ beaten with a chain? (p.12) b. Drinking as a 6 year old? (And remembering it?) 11 years of street life experienceat seventeen, and therefore starting from 6 years old? (p.161) c. A brother with the name "Pimp"? d. (p.31) Characters talking like what no-acting Halle Berry does in her slave movie-roles? ("Gettin' mannish with a little high yaller girl.") At, what, 9 years old? f. Being introduced to many books about people (by Mrs Cohen), even though just a few chapters earlier he said that he couldn't read. And given that he spent a total of 6 hours in school up until the age of 15 (p.156), how likely was that? g. (p 155, 100). Black guys that are not interested in white ladies? Or at least curious? it's also somewhat confusing, because he did have the relationship with Jewish Judy. And it was the best one in the book. h. He was able to play jazz piano after 6 months? Um, okay. 2. The recall ability is just a little bit too hard to believe. Brown wrote this book when he was about 27 years old, and he has all of this instant recall of just about EVERY SINGLE WORD from conversations that happened 17 years ago. 3. The reading / organization is generally pretty poor. It feels like stream-of-consciousness writing. The characters just come in and out with no introductions and nor really proper exits. Excessive overuse of the word "cat" and a certain self-referential racial slur that black people like to use. 4. Claude Brown walks a very fine line between being interesting and being dislikeable. Let him tell it, he has made a name for himself at 14 years old. (Everybody is afraid of him, and so he doesn't have to knock out her tooth to make a point. [p 139.]) And he knows how to teach everybody everything. And he knows how to come in contact with people who can teach him all of the tough stuff. Remember that all of this purported hard stuff that he did was before he was 16 (i.e., old enough to go to jail), and so he didn't actually have the experience of doing Hard Time. ****** The book could also be read in many other ways: 1. A retelling of the story of some number of black people in a Northern City that get along just fine with everybody, and then it is ruined by Southern Blacks. (If you want to read that story, a better choice would be "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," by Thomas Sowell. And that is because even if I was only 5% sure that it happened in the way that Thomas Sowell documented that it did, that is 5 times more certain than I am sure that *any* of these events happened in a way even close to what the author said.) More generally, it could be the story of some black people having problems in one place and bringing them with them to the new place. In that case, the opportunities for comparison are boundless. Brown repeatedly mentions the South, even though his parents had been gone from there for 25 years. He says (p.268) that "This was the sort of Life they had lived on the plantations. They were trying to bring the down-home live up to Harlem." 2. It could be read as a window into people who have the mental illness that leads to excessive recidivism. (I have a number of relatives/acquaintances who stay in and out of jail, and they cycle back so much that I can only conclude that..... They just like it because it's the way they're made up.) The author kept cycling in between reform school / prison, even though sitting in a nice comfortable classroom has to have been better than that. 3. It could be a real life example of do-gooder white people who are using black people as self-actualization therapy. a. There were examples of all of these volunteers coming from places like Austria and Norway and working with these inmates in the way that somebody volunteers to work with animals in a zoo. b. A lot of these reform schools were pet projects of people such as Eleanor Roosevelt. None of them was able to successfully complete their experiment, and they are all closed as of about 40 years ago. 4. It could be read as an example of the romanticized way that white people like to envision "inner city" black people. (Several million copies of this book are in print, and I suspect that real "inner city people" didn't purchase a single copy.) 5. It could be read as a long chronicle of the acedia that happens when people fall out of their element. (In this case, it is Southern blacks moving North.) It has been observed before that "the emancipated Jew is more frustrated than the ghetto Jew. And that the segregated negro is much less frustrated than the one that is trying to assimilate." ********** There are quite a few strange characters here. 1. The cliched Troubled Inner City Youth. 2. The black Anti-semite. (p.272). 3. The black people creating strange religions. In this book, Black Copts and things that have resonances with later Hebrew Israelites. Also, the beginnings of the Nation of Islam. 4. Black Egyptologists. 5. Black Muslims. (All of chapter 14. The upshot is that Prislam is not at all new.) 6. Real life people from that era. (Father Divine. Adam Clayton Powell. Elijah Muhammad.) Verdict: Not worth a second read. I don't exactly regret having read it, but I just didn't get that much out of it.

Auto-biography of black life in Harlem before the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Small events take forever to cover. All dialogue is reimagined from decades earlier, and everyone talks the same. All the characters are simple, other than the author’s character and one white woman. The book reinforces the bogus idea that poor, uneducated people are always unintelligent and disinterested in the world. That’s just no so. Poor people or all races think about the world and their circumstances, and talk about it. They can and do feel trapped, eager, hopeless, hopeful, motivated, defeated, resentful, encouraged, frustrated, or any range of things, just like everyone else. They pay attention to politics, just like everyone else. They analyze things. They’re interested in science, the arts, medicine, just like everyone. Black people from the inner cities were then, as now, full-dimesional, just like everyone. But you’d never know it from this book. All the women are reduced to their domestic status or physical attractiveness, except for that same white woman and the author’s childhood gal pal. For the latter, even though the author genuinely likes her, he can’t be seen with her because she’s not good looking enough. I understand not questioning that when very young, but the book covers the author from early childhood to young manhood; the same girl remains in the story; the guy questions and rejects a lot of social constraints; but never that. Women are referred to as “bitches” and “c___ts” and even worse. All the females are family members or prostitutes, except for that one white gal. Seriously? The only comments about Jews were stereotypical. They were all rich, all smart, all greedy. Again, the author didn’t question this or write it in a way that made the reader question it. Other essays, short stories, and novels of black urban life in the 20th Century convey the characters as human beings, not caricatures. Some that come to mind are Native Son (Richard Wright), The Women of Brewster Place (Gloria Naylor), The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Sonny’s Blues (James Baldwin), Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison), Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) ... oh, there are so many! Best to read something of quality instead of Manchild.

I got Man child in the promised land as a gift for a picky friend. She is difficult to buy for when it comes to books BUT THIS BOOK WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS! She called me only after 2 days of me giving her the book for her birthday RAVING about Clause's adventures, trials, and tribulations. You will laugh, you will cry, and follow Claude only to be in awe by his journey through the rough and tough Harlem at that vunerable age... As for shipping, as always it came unbelievably fast. I was worried it wouldn't come and I'd give her a late gift, but Amazon really came through for me! Thanks again!!

I have read this novel a few times. The first time I read it - it changed my life. So of course, I purchase this novel and advise many young people to read it. I think it should be required reading in high school and colleges.

This is a classic book that I read years ago I recently ordered the book again because my original copy pages had turned yellow. A masterpiece by Claude Brown.

I love this book, it is epic and well written. No library is complete without it. I am so glad it is in reprint, because the original copy (which I have), the print is small and can put a strain on your eyes.

This is my favorite book of all time! I first read it when I was 15. I was a troubled kid from a poor neighborhood so it hit very close to home for me. It showed me that I didn’t have to continue the road that I was on. I think it should be read in poor urban schools as a symbol of hope. Possibly even adapted to film

Although this book was written in the 1960s, it is, still, very relevant today. This book was recommended to me back in 1983 or 1984 when I was in the military. I bought it with a number of other books. It took me twenty years to read it. I should have read it alot sooner; but, the rigors of life and the fact that a good many other books I bought kept pushing this one further back on the reading list. I grew up in the streets of NYC and saw his life being played out in a number of guys and gals I hung out with at that time. I didn't get caught up in the drug scene nor in the gangsta scene but, like the author, there was a lot going on outside the walls of the house to keep me outside nearly all day. Yeah this world was much newer for me then rather than now but I had to see what was going on within and without my neighborhood. As a parent looking at my kid, I know this world is new to them, which I can't shelter them from. As my kids look at me as their parent, they are constantly telling me to get out of their way. I want to see what is going out there. This only helps me to keep life real for them with a dose of non-reality here and there. Fortunately for Claude Brown, the street made him wise and through his book some of us can reminesce about those days and explain to others what urban life was like for us and how it made us what we are today. For others who have not experienced this urban lifestyle, take the book for what it is and re-evaluate your own experiences in hopes of passing on a reality check of your own life to your children.

Manchild In The Promised Land is, unlike Tookie's diatribe, the real deal. A facinating insight into the lifestyle and politics that dumped so many of our minority communities into a civil rights wasteland of tragedy, economic strangulation, academic failure and political correctness. A classic that deserves to be on every young person's reading list. It is a message that has meaning in Beverly Hills and in the Bronx. The author is one of the very few who can write the story in the first person, but, with the enhanced vision of someone who has risen above the narrow confines of his neighborhood to experience the best of American education. What is especially refreshing within this tragedy is that the author is content to tell the story without seeking to shakedown your pocketbook or heart. The net effect is of course to create a much deeper sadness for those who experience the "inner city". For those on the inside it gives a glimpse of the exerience of someone who breaks free, but whose heart remains attached. For those who have never experienced streets where people avoid eye contact and yet are always alert for the next threat and the elderly and infirmed only venture out in the middle of the day this is the painful, tragic reality.

I remember reading this when I was perhaps 10 or 12 years old. I don't think I really understood much of it, partly because I was a white, middle-class suburban kid trying to relate to Harlem, and partly because it had references to sex, drugs and crime that I just didn't get...didn't relate to at all. But it made a definite impact on me, to the point where I sought it out and re-read it...oh 40-45 years later. I still can't say I know Claude's world but I understand it more now than I did then.

I know that this book has been in print a long time, and it has been suggested that it was a "classic." And so that prompted me to read it just so that I could say I had. After I finished it, I came away with several thoughts: 1. The events are just a little bit too unlikely. a. An eight-year-old gone from home for weeks at a time/hit by a bus / thrown into the river / hit by a car/ beaten with a chain? (p.12) b. Drinking as a 6 year old? (And remembering it?) 11 years of street life experienceat seventeen, and therefore starting from 6 years old? (p.161) c. A brother with the name "Pimp"? d. (p.31) Characters talking like what no-acting Halle Berry does in her slave movie-roles? ("Gettin' mannish with a little high yaller girl.") At, what, 9 years old? f. Being introduced to many books about people (by Mrs Cohen), even though just a few chapters earlier he said that he couldn't read. And given that he spent a total of 6 hours in school up until the age of 15 (p.156), how likely was that? g. (p 155, 100). Black guys that are not interested in white ladies? Or at least curious? it's also somewhat confusing, because he did have the relationship with Jewish Judy. And it was the best one in the book. h. He was able to play jazz piano after 6 months? Um, okay. 2. The recall ability is just a little bit too hard to believe. Brown wrote this book when he was about 27 years old, and he has all of this instant recall of just about EVERY SINGLE WORD from conversations that happened 17 years ago. 3. The reading / organization is generally pretty poor. It feels like stream-of-consciousness writing. The characters just come in and out with no introductions and nor really proper exits. Excessive overuse of the word "cat" and a certain self-referential racial slur that black people like to use. 4. Claude Brown walks a very fine line between being interesting and being dislikeable. Let him tell it, he has made a name for himself at 14 years old. (Everybody is afraid of him, and so he doesn't have to knock out her tooth to make a point. [p 139.]) And he knows how to teach everybody everything. And he knows how to come in contact with people who can teach him all of the tough stuff. Remember that all of this purported hard stuff that he did was before he was 16 (i.e., old enough to go to jail), and so he didn't actually have the experience of doing Hard Time. ****** The book could also be read in many other ways: 1. A retelling of the story of some number of black people in a Northern City that get along just fine with everybody, and then it is ruined by Southern Blacks. (If you want to read that story, a better choice would be "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," by Thomas Sowell. And that is because even if I was only 5% sure that it happened in the way that Thomas Sowell documented that it did, that is 5 times more certain than I am sure that *any* of these events happened in a way even close to what the author said.) More generally, it could be the story of some black people having problems in one place and bringing them with them to the new place. In that case, the opportunities for comparison are boundless. Brown repeatedly mentions the South, even though his parents had been gone from there for 25 years. He says (p.268) that "This was the sort of Life they had lived on the plantations. They were trying to bring the down-home live up to Harlem." 2. It could be read as a window into people who have the mental illness that leads to excessive recidivism. (I have a number of relatives/acquaintances who stay in and out of jail, and they cycle back so much that I can only conclude that..... They just like it because it's the way they're made up.) The author kept cycling in between reform school / prison, even though sitting in a nice comfortable classroom has to have been better than that. 3. It could be a real life example of do-gooder white people who are using black people as self-actualization therapy. a. There were examples of all of these volunteers coming from places like Austria and Norway and working with these inmates in the way that somebody volunteers to work with animals in a zoo. b. A lot of these reform schools were pet projects of people such as Eleanor Roosevelt. None of them was able to successfully complete their experiment, and they are all closed as of about 40 years ago. 4. It could be read as an example of the romanticized way that white people like to envision "inner city" black people. (Several million copies of this book are in print, and I suspect that real "inner city people" didn't purchase a single copy.) 5. It could be read as a long chronicle of the acedia that happens when people fall out of their element. (In this case, it is Southern blacks moving North.) It has been observed before that "the emancipated Jew is more frustrated than the ghetto Jew. And that the segregated negro is much less frustrated than the one that is trying to assimilate." ********** There are quite a few strange characters here. 1. The cliched Troubled Inner City Youth. 2. The black Anti-semite. (p.272). 3. The black people creating strange religions. In this book, Black Copts and things that have resonances with later Hebrew Israelites. Also, the beginnings of the Nation of Islam. 4. Black Egyptologists. 5. Black Muslims. (All of chapter 14. The upshot is that Prislam is not at all new.) 6. Real life people from that era. (Father Divine. Adam Clayton Powell. Elijah Muhammad.) Verdict: Not worth a second read. I don't exactly regret having read it, but I just didn't get that much out of it.

Auto-biography of black life in Harlem before the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Small events take forever to cover. All dialogue is reimagined from decades earlier, and everyone talks the same. All the characters are simple, other than the author’s character and one white woman. The book reinforces the bogus idea that poor, uneducated people are always unintelligent and disinterested in the world. That’s just no so. Poor people or all races think about the world and their circumstances, and talk about it. They can and do feel trapped, eager, hopeless, hopeful, motivated, defeated, resentful, encouraged, frustrated, or any range of things, just like everyone else. They pay attention to politics, just like everyone else. They analyze things. They’re interested in science, the arts, medicine, just like everyone. Black people from the inner cities were then, as now, full-dimesional, just like everyone. But you’d never know it from this book. All the women are reduced to their domestic status or physical attractiveness, except for that same white woman and the author’s childhood gal pal. For the latter, even though the author genuinely likes her, he can’t be seen with her because she’s not good looking enough. I understand not questioning that when very young, but the book covers the author from early childhood to young manhood; the same girl remains in the story; the guy questions and rejects a lot of social constraints; but never that. Women are referred to as “bitches” and “c___ts” and even worse. All the females are family members or prostitutes, except for that one white gal. Seriously? The only comments about Jews were stereotypical. They were all rich, all smart, all greedy. Again, the author didn’t question this or write it in a way that made the reader question it. Other essays, short stories, and novels of black urban life in the 20th Century convey the characters as human beings, not caricatures. Some that come to mind are Native Son (Richard Wright), The Women of Brewster Place (Gloria Naylor), The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Sonny’s Blues (James Baldwin), Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison), Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) ... oh, there are so many! Best to read something of quality instead of Manchild.

I got Man child in the promised land as a gift for a picky friend. She is difficult to buy for when it comes to books BUT THIS BOOK WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS! She called me only after 2 days of me giving her the book for her birthday RAVING about Clause's adventures, trials, and tribulations. You will laugh, you will cry, and follow Claude only to be in awe by his journey through the rough and tough Harlem at that vunerable age... As for shipping, as always it came unbelievably fast. I was worried it wouldn't come and I'd give her a late gift, but Amazon really came through for me! Thanks again!!

I have read this novel a few times. The first time I read it - it changed my life. So of course, I purchase this novel and advise many young people to read it. I think it should be required reading in high school and colleges.

This is a classic book that I read years ago I recently ordered the book again because my original copy pages had turned yellow. A masterpiece by Claude Brown.

I love this book, it is epic and well written. No library is complete without it. I am so glad it is in reprint, because the original copy (which I have), the print is small and can put a strain on your eyes.

This is my favorite book of all time! I first read it when I was 15. I was a troubled kid from a poor neighborhood so it hit very close to home for me. It showed me that I didn’t have to continue the road that I was on. I think it should be read in poor urban schools as a symbol of hope. Possibly even adapted to film

Although this book was written in the 1960s, it is, still, very relevant today. This book was recommended to me back in 1983 or 1984 when I was in the military. I bought it with a number of other books. It took me twenty years to read it. I should have read it alot sooner; but, the rigors of life and the fact that a good many other books I bought kept pushing this one further back on the reading list. I grew up in the streets of NYC and saw his life being played out in a number of guys and gals I hung out with at that time. I didn't get caught up in the drug scene nor in the gangsta scene but, like the author, there was a lot going on outside the walls of the house to keep me outside nearly all day. Yeah this world was much newer for me then rather than now but I had to see what was going on within and without my neighborhood. As a parent looking at my kid, I know this world is new to them, which I can't shelter them from. As my kids look at me as their parent, they are constantly telling me to get out of their way. I want to see what is going out there. This only helps me to keep life real for them with a dose of non-reality here and there. Fortunately for Claude Brown, the street made him wise and through his book some of us can reminesce about those days and explain to others what urban life was like for us and how it made us what we are today. For others who have not experienced this urban lifestyle, take the book for what it is and re-evaluate your own experiences in hopes of passing on a reality check of your own life to your children.

Manchild In The Promised Land is, unlike Tookie's diatribe, the real deal. A facinating insight into the lifestyle and politics that dumped so many of our minority communities into a civil rights wasteland of tragedy, economic strangulation, academic failure and political correctness. A classic that deserves to be on every young person's reading list. It is a message that has meaning in Beverly Hills and in the Bronx. The author is one of the very few who can write the story in the first person, but, with the enhanced vision of someone who has risen above the narrow confines of his neighborhood to experience the best of American education. What is especially refreshing within this tragedy is that the author is content to tell the story without seeking to shakedown your pocketbook or heart. The net effect is of course to create a much deeper sadness for those who experience the "inner city". For those on the inside it gives a glimpse of the exerience of someone who breaks free, but whose heart remains attached. For those who have never experienced streets where people avoid eye contact and yet are always alert for the next threat and the elderly and infirmed only venture out in the middle of the day this is the painful, tragic reality.

Brown leaves no stone unturned when it comes to his life in New York. The Howard University graduate covers the story of the first generation of Southerners (his parents) that left to New York-the "promised land" where they expected to enjoy equality and prosperity. Instead, they were forced to deal with overcrowded living spaces and violent ghettos. He paints a picture of his rugged coming of age with vivid recollections of how he gained his rep as a brawler, the friendships gained and lost due to drugs and violence, as well as his fight to escape the seemingly hopeless condition that Harlem was trapped in at the time. After surviving run-ins with the law, brutal fights and the ravages of drug abuse, one can only hope to have half the mental toughness that Brown had to rise above his circumstances.

This is my second time reading it and it is just as relevant today as it was in the 50's. I read this when I was 14 years old and it is still riveting.

This is a great book. I have read it several times and it never fails to entertain. It says thinly fictionalized but I believe it is a true story. It's hard to believe children ran wild like that back then.

I first read Manchild in the Promise Land when I was sixteen. At fifty-six - I have finished reading the book for a second time. From a child's eyes this book showed me why one should never use drugs and I never did. From an adults view it taught me how to deal with a family member that is actually using drugs. This is one of the best books ever written on young-boy's street life. In and out of boys homes, poverty, seeing his best friends drugged, this book should be required reading for all young male and females. It even teaches readers the transverse of some males into homosexuality, and his acceptance of this shocking revelation in the black community is honestly portrayed. Just when it seemed that Sonny was headed towards the destructive path his friends were on, he pulled himself out, which is surprising because Sonny was the baddest kid in his community. I think mentors like group home professional, Papanek and his mother paved the way for Sonny to have optimism in life. It was sad to see that when Sonny got out of the boys home, he actually missed being there. Once home, he'd actually get on the "jail bus" to go back to the home, if for nothing else to have a conversation with his mentors. His young love relationship with a girl that ended up on Heroin was very touching to me. "Nodding" was not something Sonny wanted to see any of his friends or loved ones do and when he sees his brother Pimp nodding for the first time, that literally changed my life. This was and always will be the book that kept me from ever using or sampling drugs.

Like it explained a few things that we the general don't know

Compelling about life!

Empty

U read this book many years ago and enjoyed reading it again

This is a great read! I especially encourage urban youth to read this book about the boy-to-man experiences of the author. I believe it will help someone find their path in today's sometimes overwhelming and under-benefiting society.

A great classic. Still very much relevant to the African American male experience in America.

Almost impossible to put down. Perhaps some won't agree with the comparison, but it is like an inner city Catcher in the Rye.

A true American Classic and a MUST-READ for all interested in the African-American experience. The voice of Claude Brown is timeless and this book reads as if it was written just yesterday.

Second time reading. Great book!

Good book

Great read......must read for black teens and young adults

Great coming of age book.

This is a great book that I read in college, so I purchased it for my son!

It left me hanging. It didn’t close the story. I felt like it should have given more and spoke about the same thing too often.

I watch the tear gas filled streets of Ferguson Missouri drenched with the exasperating futile emotions of the 2014 black youth and I ask myself what has changed. Thank you Claude Brown for your illuminating literary capacity to capture the moment that never ends but still gives hope to a sick nation.

Very real, written in colloquial terms from the 'hood' off the fifties. No embellishments, straight talk about growing up in Harlem,

Been loving this book since I was a teenager. Lent it out and never got it back so was looking to buy it again. And very happy I did....the quality was even better than I expected!

I would be hesitant to recommend this book to others because of the profanity in it. It is a good book never the less.

I read this book a few years back loved it then and love it now. I let some of my friends read it , really loved it.

A classic book for anyone who wanted to know what it was really like to grow up in Harlem during the 1970s.

Best book I have ever read. I have re-read several times over the years. Right up there with autobiography of Malcolm X

Enjoyed reading very much

Great read!

This is definitely in my top 5 of all time! The narrative was well laid out and the story was told beautifully!

Love this book. I guess I have read this book about 5 times. I get something new from it each time because I have read it at different stages in my life. The first time I read it I was in the 8th grade.

read it 20 years ago.. needed another copy

Excellent glimpse of what life was like for impoverished Blacks who left the South in search of the American Dream by going North.

Great

I will always love this book!

I read this as a young teen and over and over since then. My copy somehow got lost so glad I was able to buy this here. Claude Brown has a story to tell and one can learn a lot from it.

Great read.

My son and his friends loved the book...as I did when I read it as a teenager.

I'm giving 5 stars even though book wasn't as described, but seller did refund my money without me even asking. That means a lot in my book ( no pun intended).

I read this book in high school and wanted to read it again (a few decades later) because I was so touched by it. It's still as gripping even now as it was 30 years ago. I'd recommend it to anyone.

This is a very good book describing growing up as a black man in Harlem. Claude Brown overcomes all of the obstacles and temptations such as drugs and prostitution and gets himself an education in spite of all the bad influences in his life. I highly recommend this book.

Just as or better than advertised

A very evocative work. The writing has an almost jazz like rhythm. It is a must read to understand the time and its issues.

Excellent

gift

Manchild in the Promised Land is a classic and great read about growing up in Harlem and overcoming the obstacles of growing up in a neighborhood of crime and apathy..

I like reading this kind of material as it gives insight to a way of life that I am not familiar with.

I'd recommend this to anyone young person in America. This books gives you a glimpse into a window of what it was like to live in Harlem back in the day.

This is an awesome book and I thought that I would never find it, but was so happy that I did because it was in wonderful shape.

I just had to have th is on my kindle. this is the third time reading this book, and what a fabulous piece of work. Thanks for making it available on kindle.

Must read book. read it in college, reading it again.

Quite a fascinating view of the culture, Harlem, c. 1950.

I read it as a young woman and forgot how remarkable it really is. Still has the same emotional punch.

Powerful!

Just what I was looking for!!

Black men read it .

I was able to find this book relatively easy, based on a few keywords. My boyfriend started reading it several years ago and was unable to complete it. The storyline stuck in his memory and I bought it as a surprise for him, because over the years he mentioned it occasionally. Thanks for making the lookup so easy!

This book was recommended by a friend, couldnt put it down it was a great read. Would love to see this as a movie

Amazing book.

It starts out slow, but the lessons begin to unfold as the story goes on. Claude's language gets better and better as you get deeper into the story.

I wish I had read this book years ago.

loved this! cant believe they make you write more it totally seems pointless! but this is a good book :)

Such an amazing, hardcore look at the trappings of the inner city. The story moves along at quite the pace and you are happily following along! I thoroughly enjoyed it, wished I had checked it out sooner.

Got this book for a penny and shipping - best penny i spent on a great classic - love the fact that u can get older books at such a great price such a great deal!!!

One of my favorite books of all time. I read this as a teenager and as an adult. Loved it both times for very different reasons.

lots of detail, I appreciate great story telling. This book had me thinking what would i do if my child was like this.

Very good book

This book makes everything sooo real !!!!!!!!!!!! You feel like you are actually there in harlem, with its people and street activities.... Wish they could make a movie out of this.

I first read this book about ten years ago; it's amazing! The product delivered to me was in top-notch, brand new condition. I am greatly satisfied, and purchased one each for my teenage cousin and nephew.

It was more than expected.

I chose to give this book 5 stars because it was a really interesting and a great read. Definitely brought enlightenment to the mind of the thoughts of black people back then.

A great book I enjoyed it

Great book

Wow. This book pulls no punches, and it's shocking, sad, and fascinating. People like me who've lead a privileged life need to find out what life on the streets is like. Read this book.

Without a doubt, my favorite book of all time! A powerful tribute to Claude Brown's struggles, and his ability to overcome them!

Great book, easy read.

This book was an incredible read. many times I could not put it down. The narration and stylistic writing bring you right into his Harlem.

True story happens like this reality

The condition was fair however I knew this and paid next to nothing for it, and it came to my mailbox as I said in my title lightning fast. Excellent service!

It was an illuminating account of African Americans in Harlem and the social forces that made people into what they became.

My FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME!!!!

I love this book because it's so inspirational. It shows u that no matter how bad things get, you can always pick up and turn your life around

Its a classic

This product came in good time and great condition. For its price, you can't beat it! I look forward to purchasing more in the fit ire!

got this for my son, sorry I never read it, but he loved it and passed it on to his school friends.

Manchild was painful for me. In some ways the environment then was more positive than it is now, e.g., he had both parents and gang life was not as virulent. I grew up in New York and though I was not is the same neighborhood, our neighborhoods were not that far apart and it was hard for me to believe his environment could have been so toxic. I knew people who grew up "down the hill" and did quite well. I also knew a lot of the people and institutions he referenced so it was interesting for me to hear about them from his perspective. As a college student, I worked in an after-school community center and had the opportunity to see the effect of drugs as they swept into the community. Some of my best students fell. I was heartbroken. These were good kids, smart kids. I was going to choose this book for my book club but changed my mind because I am the only black person and my experience is that white people tend to think that the experience of one black person is the experience of every black person and I did not feel doing the differentiation, so I chose the feel-good book by Sotomayer. In the final analysis, I don't see how we can continue to tolerate this tragic loss of lives.

An interesting read, but somewhat boring. Claude's tale is a very sad one, yet happy in the end. It was nice to see him overcome his obstacles.

Manchild in the Promised Land is an autobiography by Claude Brown. He chronicles his growing up in Harlem in the 40's and 50's. He details his mischief as a youngster and his eventual emergence from the street life. I've read many biographies and most biographies are about exceptional people who have done exceptional things. That's not to say Claude Brown isn't exceptional in his own right but in the grand scheme of things his accomplishments were rather tame. For sure, Claude deserves a lot of credit to get to where he got from where he came from. He mentions that as early as seven and eight years old he was already on the streets skipping school, stealing, fighting, lying and conniving. He continued that lifestyle until about the age of 16. A reform school stay and juvenile detention center stay later he made the decision that the street life wasn't the life for him. From that point on he made a concerted effort to leave Harlem and try to do something for himself that was more sustainable. From that respect, Claude was an exceptional human being. To buck the odds and escape the urban ghetto alive, without needle marks or a felonious record is remarkable. But his story was so incomplete. In other words, he doesn't offer much of anything besides his story of "survival". As a young man I may have read this book and been in awe of Claude Brown. Here it is a young man in the inner city lived a fast life and survived. He became a street "legend" (as he called himself) and was able to write a book about it. But as an adult with kids of my own I was looking for more from the story. Like, what was his assessment? What did he learn from it all? What were/are his feelings about his life? What is a way out for others like him? He had a platform to give concrete guidance and/or answers to the reader yet he didn't. It was clear he lacked the ability or the desire to eloquently express himself. The book was more like: "This was my life. I survived it." I'm not looking for an autobiographer to be an Edgar Allen Poe. One of the reasons I liked The John Carlos story (one of the two Olympians that held up the Black Power fist during the '68 Olympics) was that his story was told in a simple no frills manner. Simplicity is perfectly fine when telling a story, but Claude's grammar and manner of expression was poor. There was more than one "we was" and descriptions of positive things simply being "good". At first I thought his language was mirroring his age at that time in the story and that his vocabulary as well as his writing style would progress as he aged throughout the book. That never happened. The whole of his book is in street vernacular and not just the dialogue. Then, when he writes about the dirt he did as a young lad he shows no contrition. He almost boastfully explains his stealing, fighting, drug use, drug sales and even his being apart of a gang rape. His talking about dropping out of school, "bebopping", smoking reefer, fighting, selling drugs, having a girl "trick" for him, conning, drinking, stealing, etc. is almost like your average rapper who glorifies similar debauchery. There is a difference between stating what you've done so as to be open and honest and stating what you've done nostalgically as though you missed those days. The impression I got was that he left that life alone because he grew tired of it not because it was wrong. He narrated it all to say that if he had to do it all over again he would because it made him the man he became. Besides his glorification of crime it was clear that he stigmatized Black people just as much as anyone else. There were three instances where that was clearly illustrated. When mentioning his sister and another young girl in his neighborhood that had developed he said they had "titties". When he spoke about a German woman and later his Jewish girlfriend he said they had breasts. Also, he referred to many Black women as "bitches" whereas the white girls and women he encountered were just that: white girls or white women. And the most disappointing was that his deepest most intimate relationship was with a white young lady. Now, that in itself was not a problem. People fall in love with all kinds of people. The problem was that in describing this relationship he used that as a platform to attack Black women and to mention that they were too hard and tough. I couldn't help but think, "What do you think they think about you? And they had to be tough growing up in that environment where men are trying to turn them out, beat them up or gang rape them. It's too bad they didn't grow up in the warm nurturing environment your new love was afforded." It seemed so hypocritical. But I see what the fascination is with the book. It was published in 1965 and people--especially Black people in the inner cities--could read this book and see that their situation is not and anomaly. Harlem was Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Los Angeles. The person who recommended the book to me was delighted to see his own life in Oakland being detailed in a book written 30 years prior in a city 3000 miles away. Some of the things Claude did certainly had an entertainment value as well as his life serving as an expose' on life in Harlem. He saw heroin come in--well before crack came around--and destroy his neighborhood. He saw young girls turn to prostitution, men turn to pimping and drug dealing and all of this was more-or-less due to the poor hopeless lives they were leading. This book was invaluable in showing the world this ugly truth. But I think the book fell short in so many ways. Claude Brown survived Harlem, yes, but sometimes it's not enough just to be called a survivor.

This is my second reading of Manchild In the Promised Land. I initially read it as a resource for a high school term paper in 1970. It was overshadowed by my reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This time I read it after reading all of James Baldwin’s novels. Again I found it lacking. It fails to impress me for several reasons. First, it lacks the narrative beauty of Baldwin’s work. Some reviewers have described it like reading jazz. Unfortunately I cannot agree. At best it is choppy. Second, its concluding pages are disappointing. They seem to be added as an afterthought. Third, Brown’s history appears to be illogical. Your time will be better spent reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain.

I wish I could give this book a rating of 10 stars. The language in the book is crude, but it serves only to make the story more authentic. Although this book was published five decades ago, it is just as pertinent today as it was then. It is such a precise and honest appraisal of black life in the ghetto, it could have been written about Baltimore, Detroit, Newark or Ferguson, as well as Harlem. It is the quintessential book on racism, crime and growing up poor. The culture of the ghetto is self-defeating. The effort to get out is monumental. The need to provide a way to do so is paramount. This is a novel, but it is also the autobiographical story of Claude Brown’s life in his own words. Claude Brown was born in 1937, before drugs ravaged Harlem. Still there was terrible poverty. Some kids never had food. Some were simply always hungry. Some simply stole to eat. There mothers were not home; mostly they worked in menial jobs for white people who could afford help in the home, and some sold their bodies. Fathers who were employed did pretty much the same menial work, or they were often absent or unemployed or out drinking. The kids did what they had to do in order to get by, and so did the parents. When betrayed, they punished the betrayers, when preyed upon, they tracked down the bullies and fought them to maintain reputations so they would not be bullied further. Pride was power. If you didn’t prove yourself, you were a target. Claude Brown had little respect for law and order, and he fully expected to be arrested at some time in his life. He defied the rules and the police, and he accepted his fate as unavoidable. He described the environment in the early forties, in Harlem, as he grew up, in an environment in which he revered those who would teach him to be a hustler. By the age of four, someone had already offered to school him in breaking the rules. The offer was made to teach him how to play hooky once he began school. By six he was already a thief. At 13 he was shot and wounded. At 14 he was in reform school. It was in these places that these young criminals were sent, that they honed their skills and learned more and more about shake-downs and breaking the law. They learned that cops would not always arrest them, fearing outcries of racism and brutality. They learned how to push that envelope to the breaking point. These places they were sent were also where many neglected and abused kids wanted to go for a time, to get three meals, a place to sleep that was warm and a roof over their heads. Their friends were all in the same place. It was better than home for some. By the time he was a teenager, Claude was an accomplished criminal. He took what he wanted, abused others who didn’t’ agree with him and committed crimes with abandon, protecting and preserving his image. He had pride, above all, and it was important to show that to all in the world in which he lived. No matter what rules were in place at home, in school or in the community at large, he could defy them. He followed the rules of his friends, good or bad, because they were his mentors; they had his back. So, from the get-go, Claude, known as Sonny to his friends, was doomed. He had to grow up, when he was still just a child. By the time he neared the end of his teens, he had lived a lifetime. But, also by that time, he discovered that he had to get out of Harlem. He had always stayed away from habit forming drugs, fearing the consequences. That eventually was his saving grace. He did not want to be an addict. Junkies were overrunning the community. Getting high with friends was a social event. Junkies committed crimes wantonly. The habit controlled them completely, and the habit destroyed them. Hospital beds in Bellevue filled with junkies who had committed crimes and were going mad with the desire for the drugs. Once a junkie got clean, even if he stayed clean which was rare, he still went back to the street and sold drugs turning others on to that awful habit and a life destined to failure. These victims of themselves and of the failure of society, blamed everyone but themselves for their addiction, their criminality and their poverty. The belief that they were continuously being oppressed was ingrained into the culture. Various groups rose up to exacerbate the situation. Instead of encouraging hard work, they encouraged a belief in a black culture that was superior to the white culture, essentially trying to create a society that would be just as lopsided, but one in which they would be in control. Some groups wanted revolution, but there were also some that wanted to educate the young so they could get out of Harlem, break free from the culture of crime and poverty. That was largely the church effort, not the effort of groups like the Coptics, or the Black Muslims or the Black Panthers. Those groups seemed to want power, not progress. At first, it was believed whatever would create pride in being black was good, and some groups attracted large followings. Some of the men who joined them straightened out their lives, but many slipped back as they lost faith in the preachings of the groups, or saw through their arguments and recognized that they were self-defeating. Some groups taught hate and anger and anti-Semitism. Most taught hatred of the police whom they believed oppressed them. Unfortunately, it appeared from what I read, that violence and brutality to show strength, power and conrol, was respected far more than integrity, intellect and/or honest achievement. Gangs ruled with authority using fear and their own kind of justice to create obedience and unity. No slight could be ignored without retribution in order to maintain one’s reputation so as not to make one a continual target. The children of Harlem were sucked into the criminal culture at an early age by those hanging out in the neighborhood, by brothers and sisters and their friends, by the idea that this was the way of life to aspire to, this was all they would be able to accomplish in life, so why fight it. They became sexually active at a very young age. They “played”. They learned to simply take what they wanted and never look back. This was just the way their life was; you needed to get a reputation that made others fear you or you would be someone else’s prey. For Claude, “real jail” was not an option. By the time he neared legal age, he knew he was going to have to make a change. He realized that a permanent mark on a police record, which could never be expunged, would condemn him to the ghetto for the rest of his life. He realized that he had to get out of Harlem because he couldn’t get Harlem’s way of life out of himself in any other way. He moved to Greenwich Village where all kinds of people were accepted. He went to work for a Jewish couple. The wife gave him books to read. His options broadened as his view of the world widened. He worked pretty steadily. He went to school and earned his High School diploma at night. Eventually, Claude even wanted to go to College. He passed the exam for Columbia, but he couldn’t afford to go to school. He became involved with a group from a church that promoted higher education and helped qualified students get a higher education. He learned to play the piano. He recognized that he no longer belonged in Harlem. This is not to say that he did not face obstacles or prejudice. He did, but he managed to forge on. He learned to control his temper. He visited different places of worship, trying to find a fit. He saw prejudice on both sides, white on black, black on white, and he was aware of anti-semitism, of the view that the “Goldbergs” were taking advantage of them. Some even vowed to shop only in black owned businesses, so no whites could fleece them any longer. They promoted the beauty of being black, they promoted their superiority, but It was no longer good enough to be equal, they wanted to be better. The problem seemed to be that they didn’t want to have an opportunity to get better, they simply wanted it to be that way. Everyone blamed someone else for the ills in society that they faced. He tried to influence others to escape from Harlem, including his brother, by making changes in their lives. He understood that there were too many funerals and too many young men locked up in prison from Harlem. This was written in 1965 about the preceding 25 or so years, and, yet, today, some 50 years later, not much has changed. There are still some Claudes, but there are also those who continue to perpetuate that self-fulfilling prophecy of doom, just like his brother Pimp who never got out. As Brown took me on his journey from boyhood to manhood, dreams of crime to college dreams, in a story suffused with some tongue in cheek humor, I wanted to believe that progress does not have to be so elusive. I wanted to feel hope, Yet, the stereotypes still abound; as Claude writes in the book “whites are mean and stingy, if he is more stingy than mean he is a jew, if he is more mean than stingy, he is a cracker!” In a culture that reveres stealing and believes it is fun, that believes rioting is exciting and adventurous, is it any wonder that most wind up with lackluster lives, with little education and few accomplishments? Blame need not be assigned. It is unproductive, but solutions to this monumental failure of society have to be found before chaos reigns. It has to begin at the beginning. In a paraphrase of a common saying, “doctor heal thyself,” I say, people heal "thyselves", and that means all people!

I thoroughly enjoyed Manchild in the Promised Land (1965) from beginning to end, though I can see how some readers might feel it is too long and meanders around with descriptions of redundant events. However, for me, the repetitiousness was part of the power of the book, which gives a thorough chronicle of the author from his childhood, when he engages in antisocial behavior ranging from skipping school to petty larceny, through his teen years to young adulthood (I think he's in his early 20s when the book's chronology ends), when he has made some significant decisions about turning his life around. The other major character aside from first-person narrator Claude Brown (mostly called "Sonny" in the book) is Harlem and the gravitational pull it exerts on its inhabitants for good and bad. On the bright side, Harlem is a center of black culture in a larger racist society (the book takes place in the pre-civil-rights era roughly from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s). However, it also a fomenter of self-destructive behavior that sends a frightening number of its young men to jail and its girls into prostitution, and a fair number of all of them into drug addiction. Perhaps the most dramatic of the book's sub themes is the devastation wrought by the introduction of heroin into Harlem in the mid-50s. While illegal drugs (primarily pot) had been present for many years, Brown's description of the prevalence of heroin and the junkies it produced by the thousands reads like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with otherwise functional people suddenly becoming "nodders" (that is, prone to nodding off from the drug's effect) lost to everything but the next hit. Claude loses several friends (and a family member) to heroin, and many others to the criminal justice system. Perhaps the most fortunate single event in Claude's life comes when his first hit of "horse" (powdered heroin meant to be inhaled) gives him a bad trip and he swears off of hard drugs ever after. Soon, he also realizes that continued criminal activity will only suck him down into a hopeless cycle of prison and unemployability. His key insight, which escapes almost all of his cronies, is that getting "paper" on yourself (that is, getting a criminal record) once you reach age 18 is like receiving a death sentence on your future. Early on, Claude is a reprehensible kid who preys on the neighborhood, with no thought of anyone but himself and his cohorts in crime. One wonders how devastating even seemingly petty crimes like emptying the till in a local shop or stealing sheets drying on lines were for victims who weren't exactly affluent. Worse, unlike many of his buddies, Claude came from a stable home with married parents and a gainfully employed father. Granted, Mr. Brown may not be everyone's father of the year candidate with his violent temper and Saturday night bouts with alcohol, but he provided for his family. In the end, three of his four kids seem to have made it. Brown's portrayal of Harlem in this era makes an excellent companion piece to more famous narratives like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain. I've also been reading Chester Himes' early Gravedigger Jones/Coffin Ed detective novels, which take place in Harlem around this same time and provide a slightly lighter hearted look at this storied New York City neighborhood. Anyone who enjoyed Manchild in the Promised Land might want to look those books up.

This is a tough book to read. It's fascinating and hard to look away though. The writing is very straightforward, there's no mixing metaphors or prose-y approach to the truth. It's mostly a vivid retelling of one person's story that jumps around in his life. What I really liked is it's a perspective that so often gets ignored. How many books about the experience of black men are actually written by black men? It's a heartfelt and honest retelling. No sugar coating life experiences or mistakes. But it also goes a step further into addressing why Claude felt so pressured to do these things - the need for respect, for defense, for his family. And not in a way that tries to justify his actions either, this book hardly reads like a memoir so much as a terribly gripping story. It also provides an interesting historical perspective. Sure it's anecdotal, but I had no idea there was such a growing Muslim population during this time in New York. There are definitely some tough moments but it's a great book.

This gripping memoir of life as a Harlem street hustler is powerful, raw, depressing, enlightening, and one of the most memorable books ever penned. Claude ¨Sonny¨ Brown (1937-2002) describes his life as a thief, hustler, dealer, fighter and troublemaker - much of it before he even reached his teens. Together with his pals, Sonny played hookey from school, stole repeatedly from stores, and looked for suckers to scam. As Sonny admits in the last page, the streets of Harlem were so filled with action (fights, stabbings, etc.) that he seldom wanted to go inside for supper. According to Sonny, all of this was normalcy in Harlem in the 1940-50's, a neighborhood filled with drug addicts, hookers, pimps, pushers, thugs, and other ¨ghetto role models.¨ Ironically, this was in an era when more black families were intact (Sonny came from a two-parent home) and many decent-paying industrial jobs still existed for the unskilled. Sonny also describes how at about 16 he decided to quit the street life, find a job, and return to high school (he eventually became an attorney). Why? Perhaps maturity, two stints in reformatories, or seeing so many pals end up dead, in prison, or as junkies. But despite his best efforts, Sonny couldn't keep his younger brother from heroin addiction and serving time for armed robbery. Many reviewers praise this book and Sonny for escaping the street life, but I was not as impressed. Sonny was obviously very talented, yet remained contemptuous of his naive parents (who tried to steer him right) and many whites - whom he sees as controlling overseers. Also, Sonny's regret for the outcomes of his peers (death, prison, heroin addiction) seems not to extend to the many victims of his thieving and other sordid activities. This book arrived in 1965 as Martin Luther King was launching open housing marches in northern cities to oft-fierce opposition. Given the ghetto environment that Sonny describes, that opposition seems understandable - although some might debate the point. What is non-debatable is that this is a raw, depressing, very powerful read.

One of our teachers in 1970's NJ would read to us from this book [and Down These Mean Streets] so that as teens we could see how rough some kids had it. I reread it recently and realize that our teacher was editing as he went along.....it would be tough to assign this book in high school, as the kids in the book are living a very "Rated R" life. It is crazy how violent life was in that hard drinking Harlem.....and then how calm it became when heroin showed up and turned all the street kids into nodding zombies, who would steal from their grandmas. But it still inspires, as Claude Brown saw a different life downtown....and a different life that could be reached through education. Many times these "escape from poverty" books are religious or miraculous, but this one is a plain New York grind, about an escapee that goes on to be an author and tell us just what kind of hell some of these ghetto kids survived. A GREAT READ.

Claude tells us without self pity, regret, or justification about his dangerous, difficult, violent childhood (if you can call it that) growing up in Harlem during the 1940s and 50s. In this narrative autobiography Claude or Sonny as he is known around Harlem and it's juvenile centers begins going down the wrong path at the age of seven (7). At this tender young age he began shooting hooky from school in order to hang out with the older kids who were going around fighting, stealing, and everything else. There were absolutely no good influences in the neighborhood during this time. Everyone was either selling drugs, using drugs, or thinking up schemes to cheat people out of their hard earned money. There is one paragraph that sums up the childhood that a child experienced during that time and it reads "There ain't no kids in Harlem. I ain't never seen any. I've seen some real small people actin' like kids. They were too small to be grown, and they might've looked like kids, but they don't have any kids in Harlem, because nobody has time for a childhood." " Kids are happy, kids laugh, kids are secure. They ain't scared-a nothin'. I don't never remember bein' happy and not scared." You will have to read MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND to find out about about Sonny's childhood with his family and friends and his coming of age during a time where it's believed that kids didn't exist in Harlem. You should read this book because it will open your eyes to experiences that you may or may not know exist. While reading this book I was shown a glimpse of a life that I'm not sure I would be able to endure and I learned some things from Sonny. I'm sure if you read MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND you will also learn something.

Who would've thought this medium-skinned candystore-robbing Harlem boy would've became an Ivy-league law student? Claude Brown tells his life story with honesty and open truth reminiscent of Miles Davis's autobiography. He discusses his encounters with girls, especially Sugar, who is ugly and has messed up teeth but still a certain charm about her, and his experiences at various reform schools. I found the relationship he had with his father to be especially interesting because of the constant rivalry they had. Claude also had lots of problems with drugs, especially heroin, cocaine and reefer. One admirable quality of Claude is that he holds none of this back and readily admits what he went through, no matter how ashamed he may have been. The gangs he rolled with are also interesting because of the way he often lead them, with an iron fist but still with a certain amount of care and mutual respect for every member. Also, Claude's life was positively influenced by jazz saxophone legends Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker (the Charlie Parker With Strings album is even mentioned. He gets high while listening to "Summertime"). Eventually, Claude gave up the street life and started playing piano for large amounts of time. He straightened his life out, and got out of the ghetto. Of course, being a lawyer isn't much of an improvement. It just is a safer way to make money. I read this book in 10th grade and was very motivated by it. Claude died recently, in February of 2002, which was a tragic loss. He truly was a great writer and is very missed.

"Manchild in the Promised Land" is a rare achievement: an autobiography written in clear, lucid prose without an ounce of self-pity, self-justification, or moralizing. While Claude Brown's life was difficult, dangerous, and violent, and he shows all of that in unflinching detail, he also recalls much of his childhood with pleasure and a good measure of pride that he survived. Most of all, for me, Brown's memoir is filled with regret for the many from his Harlem neighborhood who died, victims of crime, poverty, alcoholism and drug addiction. Indeed, one could say that one of the major characters of his story is heroin, which Brown describes as the scourge of his generation. The power of heroin to destroy is most poignantly described in Brown's recounting of his relationship with his younger brother. Claude took his responsibilities as an older brother seriously, but his younger brother fell victim to addiction, and Brown was forced to admit that he had lost him. As the book develops, an interesting change occurs in Brown's narrative voice. In the early stages, he describes with a defiant pride his wild exploits as a child and adolescent, which landed him in juvenile homes, and nearly got him killed. As he describes himself getting older and he eventually leaves Harlem, Brown's voice takes on a mixture of affection and regret as he talks about going back to the neighborhood and seeing old friends, many of whom had fallen on hard times. In the end, Brown's story is one of achievement. While he escapes the poverty of his youth, he refuses to forget his roots. In this sense, "Manchild"'s spiritual descendant is Sandra Cisneros' great novella, "The House on Mango Street," whose main character realizes that one must "go away to come back." Brown forges an inspirational story that overcomes despair in its power to shape memory and find meaning in a difficult life.

Powerful book. I read this on my own then soon after had to read Catcher in the Rye for school. Catcher paled by comparison. This was in the 1970's and I have not re-read either book, but Manchild had much more impact on me then and I remember it much more vividly today. I am a slow reader and don't usually re-read books, but I'm ordering this now because I have thought about it so much over the years - need to revisit. (I'm an upper-middle class white guy.)

My introduction to this book was when I was in the US Navy and I was "borrowed" it from a African American shipmate in 1969. I just wanted something to read to pass the time and soon, even as a completely naive 19 yr. old from Texas, I realized this was an important piece of literature. My shipmate left and left the book with me, which I read over and over until it fell apart. I bought another copy in a black bookstore in Dallas Texas and they were surprised that I would even know what I was looking for. A very well told, brutal and sometimes funny tale and history. Probably my favorite passage is of he and his smaller sibling cooking shrimp in Vasaline...I still have a copy and read it through on occasion.

In Claude Brown's, "Manchild in the Promised Land", the author regales the reader with a starkly realistic portrayal of Harlem. The autobiography, written in narrative form, walks the reader through the childhood and early manhood of Sonny, Claude Brown. The writer pulls no punches as he hits the page with an intense anger of the circumstances that created the culture of Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, and to great extent contribute to the same chaos today. Written in 1965, "Manchild in the Promised Land" could be referred to as a streetwise primer. It's clear, lucid prose gives unflinching detail to the black man's experience living in the ghetto. Brown recalls his childhood with pleasure and pride, a childhood defined by violence, crime and drug addiction. This honest pride is evidenced in many reverse values from "traditional" society, of those living outside the ghetto. Brown shows how these opposite values come about naturally, giving the living conditions, and how they become survival techniques that make sense. In the 1950s, no one actually lived in Harlem, they survived or died, according to Brown's account. Touted as the story of one who made it out of Harlem successfully, Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land" is the story of Sonny, a man who stands where a manchild ran.

When this book came out in 1965, the NAACP's magazine "The Crisis" and other middle-class blacks criticized this book because it's raw and unsentimental portrait of ghetto life was seen as threatening to the entry of Black Americans into mainstream positions in America at the time. Too bad so many people tuned out it's message. Many of the things Claude Brown spoke of in this book about the Harlem of the mid-20th century came to pass in far more communities than Harlem (massive drug addiction, lunatic Black nationalist cults, massive disrespect of women, mindless violece, etc). Had more people listened to Claude Brown (RIP) at the time, perhaps Black America may have united to rid our communities of these evils instead of irrelevant "issues" like the Confederate Flag so that these things would not have become the plauge that they are today. As George Santayana said, "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This was without doubt the most important book I read as a teenager. I moved to NYC from California when I was twelve and was pretty naive in the workings of the city. Reading this book when I was 13 helped me immensely. It was a street-wise primer for survival at the time (we're talking 1964). But I would hold that the subject matter is just as relevant today. If you don't know about a "Jones" or what makes a three-card-monty mark want to come back for more, then I suggest you are just as vulnerable as I was. It's also one of the all-time cautionary tales (without being preachy) about drug addiction. I did a lot of drugs in the late 60's, early 70's, but never touched heroin, primarily from reading this book. The writing, while maybe not on the level of Richard Wright, surpasses Malcom X's and Eldridge Cleaver's memoirs, and that's saying something, as those were both powerful works as well.

This powerful memoir by an ex-street hustler is alternately raw, enlightening, harsh, hopeful, and depressing. Claude ¨Sonny¨ Brown (1937-2002) grew up stealing, fighting, scamming, playing hookey and dealing drugs - before he was a teen. So did many of his Harlem peers, in a community where role models were often junkies, thieves, whores and thugs. As a young boy Sonny disliked going inside for supper because he might miss something - like a fight or stabbing. And this was New York City in the late 1940's & early 1950's, when non-skilled jobs were more plentiful and black families more intact (Sonny lived with both parents). At 16 after stints in reformatories, Sonny quit hustling, got a job, and enrolled in night school (eventually becoming an attorney). Why the change? Sonny confesses maturity and fear - many of his criminal pals were dead, junkies, or in prison. But Sonny couldn't keep his brother from becoming a heroin addict nor serving time for armed robbery. Sonny also describes community players like the Coptic Church, Black Muslims, helpful counselors and ministers, plus negative street attitudes towards whites, Jews, and females (degraded even then as "B*tches"). Many credit Sonny for arising from his harsh ghetto upbringing. I do too, but cannot credit his contempt for his parents (who tried steering him straight) nor how his remorse extends to his dead & imprisoned predatory pals but seldom to his victims. This book arrived in 1965 as did another famous street memoir (Autobiography of Malcolm X), and just before Martin Luther King launched open housing marches in northern cities against often-fierce opposition by fearful working-class whites. Given the rampant crime and ghetto horrors described in these pages, some readers may find it hard not to sympathize with those whites - a sentiment others may disdain. What seems beyond debate is that this book is raw, depressing and powerful.

Claude Brown's slightly fictionalized autobiography recounts his childhood and early adulthood throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Manchild in the Promised Land also documents the changing atmosphere of Harlem and the people it affected. Brown tells stories of himself as a hell-raiser, involved in theft and drug dealing, and spending time in juvenile detention centers like Wiltwyck and Warwick. He was able to establish a feared and respected name for himself both among the streetwalkers of Harlem and the inmates of the reform schools. Lacking formal education (resulting from years of playing hooky) and idolizing the criminal elements around him, he seemed to be heading down a short road of vice and danger. Only after Brown moved to Greenwich Village shortly before turning twenty was he able to begin viewing Harlem with a more objective eye, and see the factors that led him down the downward spiral he had been traveling. One of the main reasons Brown believes he and his friends were wrought with such violence and recklessness is due to the mentality imported by their parents from the South. The thing that mattered most to them was fighting: for one's money, girl/family, and manhood (Brown 260). He feels that that rural mentality had been brought to a crowded city life that was not only incompatible with the setting, but also destructive. He laments, "it seems as though if I had stayed in Harlem all my life, I might have never known that there was anything else to life other than sex, religion, liquor, and violence" (Brown 281). As a youth, Brown excelled in these very base attributes. It wasn't until the introduction of heroine, or "horse," as it was first introduced in the early 1950s, that he feels Harlem truly became unable to cope with their values. Instead of young men fighting for honor, they were killing and robbing for money to sustain their overwhelming addictions, introducing more guns into the neighborhood with desperate people wielding them. He witnessed his friends begin to fade away into scratching, nodding junkies. However, by this time Brown was able to leave and slowly break away from the crumbling Harlem he once knew, watching from afar many of the individuals he once hustled with fall victim to the crimes they themselves would perpetrate. Many opted instead to stay in Harlem and live the street life. He attributes this to the attitudes of whites outside Harlem and the racism they encountered. To live a "clean" life usually meant to work for a white man who underpaid, referred to them in a racially derogatory manner, and made them perform the most labor intensive tasks. When it came to these prospects, most understandably chose the life of a self-employed drug dealer in Harlem over the self-effacing menial work elsewhere, despite the danger (Brown 287). Where some people turned to drugs or religion to deal with these problems, Brown found his calling through more established and secular means. Education and music became outlets for him to express himself, gain a self-pride through non-criminal means, and eventually lead to a promising career as a lawyer and author. One of the things that make this autobiography interesting is its use of language. Brown writes in a notable street dialect, however, the language itself evolves with the character. For instance, "cat" slowly comes into use around page 67 and is used throughout, though it receives less use towards the end. More notably, on page 109 the young Claude begins idolizing a street pimp named Johnny: "To Johnny, every chick was a b*tch. Even mothers were b*tches." And so on page 114 Brown writes "Jackie was a beautiful black b*tch." From then on women are regularly referred to as "b*tches" until the character matures enough to treat women with more respect, and Johnny's spell seems to have completely worn off by the time Brown falls in love with a fellow student. Likewise, the sentence structures become less erratic and grow in sophistication as the book goes on, using less slang chapter by chapter when he begins to change. This seems to be by design. Claude Brown's personal accounts are no doubt fictionalized to some degree, for his characters go on exhaustive speeches several times, and he certainly didn't tape record them for every word. However, Brown's intentions are to present Harlem and its difficulties in approachable and creative ways. To allow readers (such as white-suburban-me) an inside look into the ways of urban life it invites an understanding and, hopefully, sympathy for the situations of the junkies, prostitutes, and drug dealers that we pass on the street. He shows them in a way that cannot be easily neglected, in intimate, personal relationships that reveal the influences and regrets that have placed them in those situations. These factors were not unique to the 1940s and 1950s. They existed before and do so today. Brown allows insight into the hardships while telling an encouraging tale of one who made it out. By personal drive and education, through art and self-expression (as this book is), he shows that the situation is not dire, but attitudes must change before the world will follow.

This book for me is the most startling and important autobiography regarding black inner city life even when compared to Malcom X's. When I was a teenager growing up in the inner city in the eighties, the older black middle class generation spoke to us "youngbloods" as if we invented crime. The sickness of self hate, envy, disrespect in our community existed for a long time before it became fashionable to parade these ailments in front of mass media for profit. Manchild details these problems through a teenager growing up in the fourties in an inner city environment who luckily makes a turn for the better at the right time before becoming an adult. This is an American story, not just a black one, and one that details why blind conservative patriotism and easy fix liberal solutions still continue to be difficult to swallow for youth attempting to survive an institutionalized system designed to almost guarantee their failure in life.

Mr. Brown has written a novel that brings home to all that have been raised in a big city how some have it tougher than themselves. I was raised in the same era in Detroit but it was a different experience. Hard drugs had not arrived on the white streets yet. Crime was at the fringes of our society and some youths did, some didn't. At the conclusion of the novel I was sincerely touched as he thought of his friends that hadn't made it and the the ones that had. We all have surely had the same thoughts and I sometimes wonder of the few of us that did well in our lives how many of the others didn't receive the same breaks. They were still our friends, and would be today if we seen them. They live forever in our minds and hearts and we do hope for the best of a good life, at least close to what we have had but there are probably more sad storys than not,better we don't know the pain could be to great. A striking novel and I will recommend to all I know.

I am very pleased with this product, the delivery was prompt and the product was just as advertised. I would recommend you to all my associates.

Plain and simple... this is one of the best books I've ever read... This book reminds me of Down these means streets and the coldest winter ever... See This book talks about life on the streets from an African American... The Coldest Winter Ever talks about life on the streets from an African American Females perspective, and Down these mean Streets, talks about life on the streets from a Hispanic's perspective... Thats how they are all connected... Anyways... I couldn't keep my face out of this book... I am so inlove with this book. I recommend it to anyone... This book is bascially about the drug-fusion era... When drugs was first puton the streets. what it did, and the results...

Reading Man Child in the Promised land is inspiring. It is a story about hopelessness, and struggle. It is a story where a man who shouldn't go anywhere but to jail, or a one way road to hell finds his way out of Harlem, and makes to a law school. The book explains everything in detail though, it is sensed that Mr. Brown doesn't really regret what he did because it got him where it did, and as such is an inspiration for other black boys in the ghetto, knowing that they can amount to something better. This is one of the few stories that brought me to tears for reasons other then sadness.

This is the first book I've ever written a review for and there's a reason; it was fantastic. I'm a busy college kid, I don't usually care about writing reviews or anything of the sort but this book was assigned for a class of mine and of course I put it off until two days before the exam. However, as I read the whole book in two days, never once did I feel that it was a chore. This book gripped me and I couldn't wait to get out of my other classes and read some more. I was so moved by this book. Without a doubt, this is the best book I've ever read. I told my professor about how much I loved it and she recommended a few more books for me that are much like it and I can't wait to read them. Thank you Professor Terry Scott at the University of Washington. Go Dawgs!

I highly recommend this book. It tells the story of the post World War II Black American urban experience through the eyes of a very smart, confident Black 8 year old. In many ways this book reminds me of Mark Twain's Huck Finn. In both books, very clever, independent young American boys take the world as it is and they push to assert themselves and they are man child's with a great sense of adventure. While other reviewers have noted the harsh, violent incidents of the book, I felt it was more balanced. Claude Brown's New York City of the 1940s and 1950s was certainly a rough place, especially when hard drugs were coming in, but it was also tough and loving in a good way. Claude Brown had tough teachers in his public school that cared about him and there was also a truant officer that would chase after Claude and the other boys who were skipping school. This White truant officer was one of my favorite characters in the book and Claude took great interest in him as a very important enemy. Claude cautioned the other boys who wanted to skip not to try to outrun this White truant officer - because he had great foot-speed (got to admire a White guy with the courage to out run and chase down and catch Black boys in their own Harlem neighborhood :-) I also enjoyed seeing the different Black cultural mix in Harlem from Blacks in the rural South to street savvy urban Blacks. Claude Brown's father isn't in to politics or hustling, he came to the city for economic opportunities and generally respects the social order of police, teachers, job bosses. Claude's father used to have to beat little Claude to get him to go to school, then later in life Claude wants to go to do graduate school work instead of taking down a steady paying job. This just doesn't fit with the country values of Claude's father. In any event, this book takes you into the heart and soul of Black urban America and it isn't propaganda - it shows Black American culture with all of it's dirty laundry. The ghetto can be a rough place, we need good, strong tough people to clean up these places and make them safe, good places for smart, adventuresome boys like Claude or a Huck Finn.

Now at the age of 38 years old as I think back upon the day I set eyes upon Manchild in the Promised Land for the first time I'm brought back to the age of 17 when I'm incarcerrated. The book served as an uncompromising indictment of society and my choices, and how they both failed me. Mr. Brown like myself, lived a very rough life, and it was through the navigation of the day to day hysteria that lessons were to be learned. This title was the first of its kind in my life up to this point which caused me to look at myself real closely and wonder what my life was to become. Like my autobiography "Survivor" I Changed the Rules Part 1, Mr. Browns life story is inspiring, and disturbing, but too real to be ignored. This was a very great read! for almost close two decades I can honestly say i've read the book atleast 8 times.

I was ready to put this book down after reading 25 pages. It was depressing as all get out. It was just one negative behavior after the other. I know part of my dislike for the book and all the characters is that I am not smypathetic (sp) towards self destructive people. However, since the book got so many reviews I decided to give it one more try and I began reading from the very last page forward. I managed to get through the book. Unfortunately, I still did not care for it. Sonny and his cohorts were predators in the neighborhood. I am a Black woman and I vaguely familiar with how a few people can wreck havoc on a neighborhood and cause they good people to want to flee. There were a few things that stuck with me out of all the violence and self destruction. One was Sonny's attitude towards his parents. He ridiculed them because of their southern ways. Did he expect them to leave North Carolina and move to New York City and act as though they had a lobotomy and forget their past? New York City and Sonny's criminal past will be a part of him till he dies no matter where he lives. I did understand Sonny's frustation at times to communicate with his parents when he became older. Sometimes talking with your parents can be just like talking to a wall. It is a useless and painful effort. His assessment of the Muslims, their behavior, and origins was really interesting. I already knew what type of folks where generally a part of the group. I agree with his assessment. If Manchild was published today it would definitely be under the urban/hood genre. What I got out of this book is "thanky Lord I wasn't raised in that environment!" Would I recommend this book? My answer is to go with the majority of readers who loved it. As you can see, I am the odd woman out.

I read this book a little while before Claude Brown passed away. I loved this book. I also read his book, Children of the Ham, and I found this book in my closet. Truly a lost treasure. I loved this book. It was so real. It's like I could see him living his life just the way he described it. I suggest everybody- no matter whether you're black, white, purple, green -read this book. Youwill not be disappointed. Trust me.

Read this when I was in my early 20's, and it so impressed me that now at 72 I had to look it up and see if it was sold on Amazon. If you have not read this book, read it. It is wonderful.

This is an American classic. Everyone should read it.

Folks in the 40s had Betty Smith's, "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". In the 50s it was J.D. Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye". As a child of the 60s I had Anne Moody and Claude Brown to educate me. I quit counting after the 5th reading of this book. I still own my paperback copy;it is severely battered, my version of a much loved rabbit. Sonny still runs around in my head and I am about to pass him over to my 13 year old son, who lives a life that is the flipside of Sonny's. He needs to know what happens in places where there is no green grass.

At the beginning of Manchild, Claude Brown describes how Harlem came to be populated by people of color. He continues by describing how he struggled with and adapted to this enviornment and eventually escaped it. This reads like a story of alienation and exile and the author's struggle to find the place where he fit and was comfortable. I enjoyed reading this book, but was left wondering if Claude Brown ever found his niche. Where did he land? Did he ever find a place that felt like home? He talks at the very end about how much he loved the street life of Harlem, but that he hadn't lived there for several years at the time of writing. I'd like an update of where the Manchild is now, what he's doing and how Harlem looks to him 50 years later---a sequel perhaps?

This book is a masterpiece. I purchased this to replace my last two copies that disappeared . . . I first read this at the age of 13! At 54 years old, it remains on my book list and will always have a place in my bookcase! Yes; I STILL own two of them!

Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land" is an American story, a story of urban community, living in it and surviving it. It's street life pure and simple, how one grows and survives in it, and if fortunate breaks free of it. To this day I do not understand why this has not become a movie or even a movie series. The story is more than that good.

This book made a huge impact on me when I was 14. It is a stunning memoir, of finding one's way in life, with variables of race, urban life, and many obstacles, yet the author went on to become a distinguished person. This spoke to me far more than Catcher in the Rye, or other books I read during that period, because I came of age in the turbulent '70s, and the themes he wrote about were more relevant.

I read this book such a long time ago, and I purchased it for my son to read also. This book was the one that made me and advid reader and it is so important for every young adult to read it whether African American or other nationality. It is simply good journalism! You can really feel where the author is trying to go with his dialogue. It puts peer pressure, city life, drugs, right in the faces of the young adult. It also helps young adults find a solution to an everyday problem. A great gift for any reader. This is something to keep in your library for all times!

I read this book years ago and it remains one of the very best I've ever come across. In 1987 I recommended this book to my boyfriend at the time and it turned him into a booklover. Strongly recommended for young, African-American males who're trying to find their way.

This book takes you from group homes to the mean streets of Harlem where Claude Brown tested fate and even some of societies taboos yet was able to pull himself up from the ghetto. He looks at child hood frineds that slipped through the cracks of society that became heroin addicts, pimps, players, pushers, and prostitutes. He shows exactly what life in the ghettos is all about the pain and the suffering. I've read this book three times and it gets better each time.

This book goes on my list of favorite books. It is a well told story of one's transition from being a boy to a man while trying to survive an break out of Harlem's trap. I had some trouble getting interested in the book in the beginning but once I did, I couldn't put it down. Realistic and compelling.

this book changed my life in a way... not that i have similar experiences or grew up in that time because i'm only 24. This was an excellent book all the way but it did a little more for me. This is one of those books that touched me and will always get praise. My mother was an addict and up until i read this book i held a grudge because she left me at the age of 5. This book made me understand the mind of an addict and that she would have probably the best mother in the world if it were not for the drugs. I understood the control drugs had over people and my mom. The book wasnt just about drugs but you can overcome and rise from the evils of the world. But for me this book made me forgive my mother.

This book started what I would like to believe as my introduction to adult reading at the age of 18. I could not put it down because captured the experience of a black child in a timeless caption of America. You understood the impact of one person on hiself and even those around him. You will never forget the unrelenting love he had for "Pimp." The love that only an older sibling could have for a younger sibling. Buy it! Then read "Down These Mean Streets."

The man knows how to write and tell his story with all the passion, spirit, and gusto that only the ghettos of Harlem can produce! I was touched beyond words while reading this book.

I read this book when I was 14 and again when I was 17 when I had my first boyfriend who was going down the same road as Sonny. He was selling drugs and was getting caught up in the life of crime. I urged him to read it and he did. He agreed that it was a great book. Unfortunately, he missed the point and made a hero out of Sonny. But I still recommend this book to young boys. I've been trying to find a copy for years for my young nephew. Adults its our duty to give a copy to all the youths that we know.

.......than this one. i read this so long ago and just wanted to come on here and add my 5 star rating to everyone else's. i'm def gonna read this book again soon

I first read this book in 1966,at that time it haunted me for many months. Little did I realize I was reading the book that was to be the single most important book that I was to read. I just read the book again and it still has the same impact that it had forty years ago. I would be very interested in knowing what became of Mr. Brown I cannot find information on him. Thankyou for what was for me ,a life changing book.