3.0
Dark Dude
ByPublisher Description
From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Oscar Hijuelos comes a riveting young adult novel set in the late 1960s about a haunting choice and an unforgettable journey of identity, misidentity, and all that we take with us when we run away.
He didn’t say good-bye. He didn’t leave a phone number. And he didn’t plan on coming back—ever.
Fifteen-year-old Rico Fuentes has had enough of life in Harlem, where his fair complexion—inherited from an Irish grandfather—keeps him caught between two cultures without belonging to either. He pours his outsider feelings into a comic book Dark Dude, with his friend Jimmy illustrating. But when Gilberto, who’s always looked out for Rico, moves to Wisconsin and Jimmy loses himself to an insidious habit, Rico decides enough is enough.
With Jimmy in tow, Rico runs away to the Midwest in search of Gilberto. The heavily white community feels worlds away from Harlem, and for the first time, Rico sees what it’s like to blend in—no longer the “dark dude” or the punching bag for the whole neighborhood. But the less energy Rico needs to put into proving he’s Latino, the less he feels like one. And the more he gets to know the people around him, the more it’s clear that a change in location doesn’t change human nature—and that there’s no such thing as a perfect community.
Faced with the truth that there are things that can’t be cut loose or forgotten, things that keep him from ever having an ordinary white kid’s life, Rico must decide whether he can make a home in the place he ran to…or the one he ran from.
He didn’t say good-bye. He didn’t leave a phone number. And he didn’t plan on coming back—ever.
Fifteen-year-old Rico Fuentes has had enough of life in Harlem, where his fair complexion—inherited from an Irish grandfather—keeps him caught between two cultures without belonging to either. He pours his outsider feelings into a comic book Dark Dude, with his friend Jimmy illustrating. But when Gilberto, who’s always looked out for Rico, moves to Wisconsin and Jimmy loses himself to an insidious habit, Rico decides enough is enough.
With Jimmy in tow, Rico runs away to the Midwest in search of Gilberto. The heavily white community feels worlds away from Harlem, and for the first time, Rico sees what it’s like to blend in—no longer the “dark dude” or the punching bag for the whole neighborhood. But the less energy Rico needs to put into proving he’s Latino, the less he feels like one. And the more he gets to know the people around him, the more it’s clear that a change in location doesn’t change human nature—and that there’s no such thing as a perfect community.
Faced with the truth that there are things that can’t be cut loose or forgotten, things that keep him from ever having an ordinary white kid’s life, Rico must decide whether he can make a home in the place he ran to…or the one he ran from.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities7 Reviews
3.0
Manuela
Created over 3 years agoShare
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Nikki Wilks
Created over 7 years agoShare
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“Identity is tough to figure out. There's this tension of honoring where you came from while trying to forge your own person simultaneously. It's messy and imperfect, just like we all are, but it's important and life giving when you finally own who you are and all you are capable of being. Thank you, Mr. Hijuelos, for reminding us of the importance of owning where we came from while recognizing who we are!”
Clete Johansson
Created almost 8 years agoShare
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ayshaq
Created over 12 years agoShare
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MontyReads
Created almost 13 years agoShare
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“Meh. Red flags should come up all over the place when author Hijuelos says he wishes this were a book he had read when he was a teen. That's a problem because A) it's pompous and self-serving to admit, and B) this book kinda sucks, which doesn't say much for his taste. Set in the late 60's, Rico is a light-skinned Cuban who has all kinds of problems in New York City, what with his parents and drugs and his drug-addicted friends and violence and blah blah blah, so he moves to a farm in Wisconsin and learns Important Life Lessons™ about parents and drugs and friends (some drug-addicted, some not) and violence and blah blah blah. It's a pretty superficial way of dealing with some problems that are actually pretty serious (racial identity being the most obvious), and I feel like there's a good book in here somewhere. But Hijuelos hamstrings himself by giving us a dullard of a protagonist and then tossing a bunch of balls in the air without much apparent concern about whether or not he can keep them there.”
About Oscar Hijuelos
Oscar Hijuelos (1951–2013) was a first-generation Cuban American and the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; he also won the Rome Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature. He wrote several novels, including Dark Dude, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, and Beautiful Maria of My Soul.
Other books by Oscar Hijuelos
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