Daisies in the Junkyard

In South Chicago gangs thrive. They wreak violence and death upon all that oppose them. It is within this bleak urban landscape that we meet Tony and Carlos who are attending their last year of high school. They want to pursue their dreams of leaving the ghetto and attend college. However, the gangs will not let them go in that they are witnesses to the violence that runs rampant on the streets and in the alleys. This is a chronicle of their struggle. Michael Enright is a priest who has worked in the Hispanic community in Chicago for over fifteen years. He very much succeeds in bringing to life this heart wrenching tale of two boys who just want to turn out good. Father Enright knows how to set the scene well and provide just enough conflict to keep the pages turning. This is not an overly sentimental or didactic tale but is actually a direct straightforward narrative that drives relentlessly to its inevitable conclusion. The sympathetic characters add to the pathos of this quite remarkable debut.

Enright gives a voice to two boys trying to survive their teenage years and stay one step ahead of the gangs that roam their neighborhood. Tony and Carlos know if they can escape the ghetto the world is better on the other side. Everday a war is fought on the street outside their front door. Each gang claims it as their own and they get what they want using whatever violence is necessary to secure their kingdom. Enright has lived in these trenches as a priest and tells first person a vivid and disturbing story of growing up in the crossfire of turf wars. As a reader you will fill Carlos pain as he loses friends to thegangs and to heavens above us daily. All he wants is to graduate and leave this place far behind and he keeps hounding Tony to have the same dream. In this story you will feel the pain of parents losing their sons to a society they don't comprehend, friends mourning a lost childhood and you will see through words the life of a gangbanger. In the end you will find a peace with this book that gives you hope that Tony and Carlos make it out ofthe south side of Chicago.

What a great story! A real page-turner - I couldn't put it down. A rare mix of violence and spirituality that turns the south side of Chicago into a surrealist painting: bizarre, but beautiful. You feel can't help feeling compassion for these characters. I was actually sad when I finished - I hope there's a sequel in the works!