Homeboy

When strip-joint barker Joe Speaker unwittingly steals a sixty-nine-carat blue diamond, he becomes enmeshed in a blackmail-and-murder conspiracy that begins with the savage slaying of high-priced call girl Gloria Monday. Suddenly Joe's a wanted man. Hunted by a murderous pimp known as Baby Jewels Moses and a relentless homicide cop named Tarzon, Joe ends up taking the rap and getting sentenced to three years. But it's in prison that the real trouble begins.

An adrenaline-pumped, hallucinogenic descent into the lower depths, Homeboy is a tough, eye-opening look at San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. Part memoir and part richly conceived work of imagination, this gritty, rambunctious novel reads like pure poetry and celebrates an uncommon talent at the height of his storytelling powers.