Web of the City

After reading this, it puzzles me why Harlan Ellison doesn't write more novels than he did. Especially considering that this is his first novel, he did an amazing job. Before I go on let me clear up one thing: this is a work of FICTION based on FACT. Harlan Ellison ran around with a group of Brooklyn gangsters for 10 weeks to get background for this story. And it shows. Parts of this book make the movie On the Waterfront with Marlan Brando seem tame. Basically it is the story of Rusty Santoro, President of a gang called the Cougars. But he feels that he can do better in life, so he drops out of his gang--they aren't too happy about it. And just as soon as he's about to break loose, he gets snared back in again. This is what Harlan Ellison means by The Web of the City. Harlan Ellison does everything well in this novel: from the distorted language of the lower class, to the atmosphere of the bad parts of town, and the types of people that live there. Although written in the 1958, this book reads as if it were written not too long ago. This book was first published as Rumble, but Web of the City is the title that Harlan gave it. I highly recommend this book, this author, and anything he writes.

Really cool stuff. As a very young writer, Ellison went undercover and joined a street gang as their "war counsellor". He spent a while living this life and then wrote this novel (also published as "Rumble") about it. Reading the book may feel a bit like watching "West Side Story" in its almost quaint depiction of 50's-era teenage life, but once you get past the dated lingo, it's a scary and heartfelt portrayal of very real people. The novel gives us some real insight into Ellison too, as he writes not only about the kids whose lives he describes but also about the ways in which those lives touch his, the decisions he must make during his time with them, and his discoveries about himself. As a story it's not his most neatly-crafted... but then, it's not a work of fiction