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A review by mcbibliotecaria
The Warriors by Sol Yurick
3.0
This is ugly. And gritty. And violent. And realistic. Yulrick worked as a social worker in inner city New York in the late 60s, when this novel takes place. Its not the anti-hero scenario from the movie, far far removed from it. I remember watching the movie and expecting some things to happen that didn't. For more people to be hurt, especially Mercy. Women in the novel are kept to the background, and are abused and denigrated. The Warriors, or Coney Island Dominators to be exact, are a black gang, not the multicultural mix from the movie. Really these are two different stories. Cyrus is a Puerto Rican named Ismael Rivera who does not own the city with his muay thai trained gang, but rules the city by his manipulation and control of the youth workers assigned to him and other gangs throughout the city. The orphans are called the Boriquen Blazers who have no youth workers or organization.
Its ugly and no one gets a satisfied (or sanitized) ending. But its a perspective few of us have into gang life pre-drug war, where the focus was on camaraderie and small time delinquency. I would recommend it with a grain of salt, because there is no Swan, but a Hector and his band of Dominators who lack morals because they have never been taught any, which make is really hard to read. I would put this on the shelf with Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll.
Its ugly and no one gets a satisfied (or sanitized) ending. But its a perspective few of us have into gang life pre-drug war, where the focus was on camaraderie and small time delinquency. I would recommend it with a grain of salt, because there is no Swan, but a Hector and his band of Dominators who lack morals because they have never been taught any, which make is really hard to read. I would put this on the shelf with Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll.