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Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780312198619 Edition: 1st Picador USA Ed ISBN: 0312198612 Label: Picador USA Manufacturer: Picador USA Number Of Pages: 248 Publication Date: 1999-03 Publisher: Picador USA Studio: Picador USA Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: In Eric Miles Williamson's debut novel, T-Bird Murphy seeks to gain a foothold in the turbulent and menacing world of '60s and '70s Oakland. While his mother runs with Hell's Angels bikers, T-Bird falls beneath the men's fists and favors, finds solace and hope in the slightest of rewards, and day by day, seeks to survive. But through the daily process of survival, T-Bird slowly begins to gather clues about who he is, where he's from, and how, if at all possible, he might escape. It is not long before T-Bird's mother disappears and he is sent to live with his ex-con father behind the Mohawk gas station on the other side of town. There he finds challenges of a different form: schools overrun by gangs, a father who is one blink away from madness, and a trumpet that might offer a way out. East Bay Grease directs an unflinching and surprisingly sympathetic eye into the heart of a young man finding his way. And through a tone that is both plainspoken and poetic, Eric Miles Williamson proves himself to be a storyteller of uncommon power and simple grace. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Growing up in OaklandComing-of-age novels tend to be highly autobiographical, and true to form, Williamson's own youth provides much of the fodder for this novel set in late '60s to mid '70s Oakland. The story starts with adolescent T-Bird living with his Hell's Angels-groupie mother in a ramshackle house in a largely Latino blue-collar part of Oakland. T-Bird's life consists of trying to get by in elementary school while avoiding the tough black and Mexican kids who prey on him daily. These years are lonely ones, sprinkled ... Read More Rating: - "East Bay Grease" Rings with RealismEric Miles Williamson does a great job of describing real life for the have-nots. Most people,especially today's youth,don't know what it's like to have to work like T-Bird had to in order to survive on his own. Forced, as he expected and accepted, to leave home the day after graduating from high school. T-Bird is much smarter and more talented than his environment and low expectatious family will allow. Williamson gives us insight to what the Oakland scene is really like and how difficult it is for even ... Read More Rating: - The Real DealI know the monotone of East Bay, I lived there for a year as a child in a dissimilar situation but similar abandonment. East Bay Grease brought back some differing smells of tide going out, or coming in; thunder vibrations from road hogs; recognition of faces and forms vaguely familiar. I could hardly put the book down as Williamson changed landscapes and humanscapes from sepia to vibrant colors contrasted against the mud of T-Bird's existence. People walked in and out of the pages as do people in our lives, ... Read More Rating:  - A rich, emotionally impacted masterpiece."Like a pearl is formed from a grain of sand, Eric Miles Williamson's kernel of truth about life in the underenvirons of California becomes a gem of a novel. In East Bay Grease, his words are a parallel to the oyster with each rasp and grind of the raw truth until they become a rich, emotionally impacted masterpiece, one that can't be put down. I congratulate my son for he, indeed, is an inspired writer." Rating: - EBG is destined to be a classic.East Bay Grease allows us to enter a world that we knew existed, but were afraid to think about. The story is a wake-up call; it makes you realize just how good you have it and that things are not as bad as it seems. It makes you appreciate the things you have and don't have. It makes you appreciate your family, your loved ones, and to just really appreciate life in general. T-Bird is an inspiration for us all; he represents the do'ers in the world, and he will not stop until he finds what he's looking for. ... Read More 
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