Sonny Goodman may have hopped the -modern underground railroad called education- and arrived in far-flung Minneapolis, but with the impending death of his father, North Philadelphia is calling him home. Quickly caught in the web that inner-city life has woven around his family's dreams, Sonny must find the strength to confront the toll urban corrosion has wrought upon the ones he loves.

Named Best First Novel by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, winner of the Minnesota Book Award and compared to the work of James Baldwin and August Wilson, Alexs D. Pate's...