Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago

This book consists mainly of transcripts from two National Public Radio documentaries, ""Ghetto Life 101"" (1993) and ""Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse"" (1996), with interviews conducted by teenage Chicago buddies Jones and Newman, both 13 in 1993. One understands here why the documentaries had such impact; the interviews provide an authentic sense of life in Chicago's notorious housing projects. Jones's teenage sister, for example, calmly notes that more than 25 of her friends have been killed on the streets. Jones, who provides the dominant voice in the book, speaks with colloquial wisdom (""Cause if you play childish games in the ghetto, you're gonna find a childish bullet in your childish brain"") and reminds us that ""Ghetto kids are not a different breed--we're human."" The other documentary explores the death of five-year-old Eric Morse, thrown out of a window by tormentors just a few years older than he. ""Those boys didn't have too much reason to value life,"" Jones observes. However, with the unsparing yet empathetic photos contributed by Brooks, this project was aimed at the eye, and other studies tell us more about the 'hood. Indeed, this book leaves an enormous question hanging: what helped Jones--raised by grandparents, his father absent, his mother mentally ill, his relatives in jail--develop his talents, while others succumb to ghetto depredations? Newman, less of a presence in the book, on his part exhibits remarkable aplomb as he pledges to stay off the streets and take care of his family. Isay is a radio documentary producer. (June)