The Ville
Greg Donaldson Book Review

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Plot Summary of The Ville

"      Taking its title from the name given to a section of Brooklyn that is one of the most dangerous areas in our country, The Ville is the true story of life in an urban ghetto. This two mile scar running through New York City is raw with the highest concentration of methadone clinics, homeless shelters, and homicides.

    Racial conflict and violence are rampant in our inner cities today. As a teacher in some of Brooklyn's toughest schools, Donaldson knows this landscape well, describes it unsparingly, and challenges many accepted nostrums about inner city life - why kids drop out, whether or not they really want to work, the use of guns and drugs.

    The Ville chronicles a year in the 75th precinct where 50,000 people live in the projects. Life is seen through the eyes of two black males, Gary Lemite, a young Housing police officer, and Sharron Corley, a member of a gang called the Lo-Lifes.

    Donaldson's picture of cops and kids in urban America is both searing and hopeful. It is an image that will not be erased by our refusing to look at it.

      - Gail Cooke"
The Snide Gail Cooke, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of The Ville

Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).

Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Kids: - committing crimes
Ethnic/Relig. of subject (inside) - Black
Ethnic/regional/gender Yes
ethnic of society (outside) - Black
Big/small town? - Big city

Subject of Biography
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - teacher/professor
Age: - 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Ethnicity - White
Nationality - American (!)

Setting
City? Yes
City: - New York
Misc setting - prison - sewers/subways

Style
Accounts of torture and death? - explicit references to deaths
Writer's slant towards subject: - neutral
How much dialogue in bio? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

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The Ville Greg Donaldson Book Review

The Ville
Greg Donaldson Book Review