Cuz: American Tragedy, An

Description: 'Devastating' J. M. Coetzee, Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature Aged 15 and living in LA, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released aged 26, only to be murdered three years later. In this deeply personal yet clear-eyed memoir, Danielle Allen reconstructs her cousin's life to try and understand how this tragedy was the end result. We become intimate with Michael's experience, from his first steps to his first love, and with the events of his arrest, his coming of age in prison, and his attempts to make up for lost time after his release. We learn what it's like to grow up in a city carved up by invisible gang borders; and we learn how a generation has been lost. With breathtaking bravery and intelligence, Cuz circles around its subject, viewing it from all angles to expose a shocking reality. The result is both a personal and analytical view of a life that wields devastating power. This is the new American tragedy.

Review: "What starts as a personal memoir, an effort to resurrect from oblivion a beloved cousin who died young, modulates in Allen's hands into a cool, reasoned, but ultimately devastating indictment of the War on Drugs and the sentencing regime it has given birth to. In plain terms, stripped of the jargon of the social sciences, she shows us what awaits you if you are young, black, and unlucky in today's United States." -- J. M. COETZEE "The genius of Cuz lies in its willingness to accept what isn't known about Michael ... Her memoir defies genre and expectation ... Cuz is a literary miracle of form and content ... Allen's ambitious breathtaking book challenges the moral composition of the world it inhabits by telling all who listen: I loved my cousin and he loved me, and I know he'd be alive if you loved him, too" -- Kiese Laymon * Washington Post Sunday * "[Cuz] will stay with you for a long time ... Moving, tender, angry, insightful, this is a damning incitement of how the system fails to treat people as humans, at how gang culture affects families, and a look at how love can blind people and have terrible consequences." * Stylist Magazine * "Cuz will break your heart. Of the recent books that have done so much against such great odds to create a meaningful anti-incarceration movement in America, it may be the most compelling ... Danielle Allen brilliantly and searingly lays all of this out ...remarkable." -- Jim Kaplan * The National Book Review * "I can only stand in awe of Cuz's account of her, Micheal's and their family's ordeals." * Huffington Post *


Author Biography: Danielle Allen is the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, professor in Harvard's Department of Government and Graduate School of Education, Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board, past Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Allen is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought and is widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America. She is a frequent public lecturer and regular guest on public radio to discuss issues of citizenship, as well as an occasional contributor on similar subjects to the Washington Post, Boston Review, Democracy, Cabinet, and The Nation.

'Devastating' J. M. CoetzeeThe story of a young man?s coming of age, a tender tribute to a life lost, and a devastating analysis of a broken system.