The Neighborhood (Paperback)

Jack Roma is at a crossroads in his life. Will he follow in the footsteps of his idolized uncles, both players in the organized crime family known in Chicago as athe Outfit?a Or will he emulate the hardscrabble, boring, yet honest life of his father, a mail truck driver? Jackas dilemma, even as the Outfit targets his uncles for execution, is worsened as he begins a relationship with the daughter of the Outfit boss who has ordered the unclesa execution. When not wrestling with his dilemma, Jack is a high school senior who, with his friends, flex their maturing gangster muscles in a variety of ways: at the all-boys Catholic high school, where the tension between the Italians and their sworn enemies, the blacks and the demented Irish priests, serves as a lit match to tinder; at dances and parties, where the city boys mimic their older brethren by taking what, and whom, they want.