One part of the book that I found particularly interesting was Justin Cone’s story. Throughout the novel, Laurence Ralph sets up the narrative of Justin, occasionally implying his connection to Kemo Nostrand. Justin, now confined to a wheelchair following a shooting, opens the narrative by expressing his dream of telling his story to better his community. He hopes to literally live through injury in order to do what he can to alter the life course of the young men in Eastwood. As the book progresses, Justin’s story becomes the main and continuing example of a “renegade dream”. From his decision to exhibit his agency by turning his misfortune into a proponent of the actualization of his dream of a non-violent community, Justin becomes a quintessence of the resilience of Eastwood.

My favorite aspect of Justin’s story comes in Chapter Four when the author makes the realization that Kemo played a role in the shooting that paralyzed Justin. This connection between these seemingly different characters shows the way in which two members of the same community chose to react to this injury. While for Justin, this involved tunneling his efforts into public speaking in order to prevent gang violence, for Kemo, this involved exercising his power to aim toward the same goal as Justin, even within a different context. Within his life of gangs and drug dealing, Kemo was still able to exercise agency in the same way as Justin in that he did what he could to achieve their shared dream within the context of his life situation. The contrast between the two paths that these men chose to take show the heterogeneity of this community in not only their experiences, but also in their reactions to their situations and challenges. I really liked the way this book was able to show how different the goals and hopes of individual members of the community were but at the same time, show how the rebuilding and advancement of Eastwood was a goal desired and worked toward by everyone.