Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption - Hardcover

Belkin, Lisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316088056 ISBN 13: 9780316088053

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1999

Synopsis

Details a true account of racial and social conflict in the city of Yonkers, N.Y.

About this title

Review:

"The pipe bomb was small as pipe bombs go, but the explosion could be heard from several blocks away--a sharp bang as rows of factory-fresh ceramic tiles shattered into a pile of razor-edged rubble. Neighbors who were drifting off to sleep sat upright, awake. Family members who were preparing for bed looked at each other first with questions, then with certainty they had the answer. 'I guess somebody is trying to blow up the new housing,' one man joked to his wife. But it wasn't a joke. That's exactly what someone was trying to do."

In 1988, when a federal judge ordered the city of Yonkers, New York, to integrate more thoroughly its low-income housing throughout the city, it set off a bitter dispute that would consume the town for the next five years. Among those caught in the controversy was the city's 28-year-old mayor, Nicholas Wasicsko, who had used the issue to his advantage during his campaign and found that he would never be able to escape it, either during or after his administration. Veteran New York Times journalist Lisa Belkin focuses not on the abstract "sides" of the integration debate, but on the people who take those sides. It's that personal perspective that makes her account most worth reading.

About the Author:

Lisa Belkin has been a New York Times reporter for nearly fifteen years and is currently a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. She is the author of one other book, FIRST, DO NO HARM. She lives in Westchester County, New York, with her family.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little Brown & Co
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0316088056
• ISBN 13: 9780316088053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 331