Getting Right with God: 2A Novel

By Lionel Newton

Book Overview

Part Boyz N the Hood, part Catcher in the Rye, Getting Right with God is the brash, energetic story of a young black man in urban America--and his bumpy ride into manhood. "In a raw, raunchy and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525937544
• ISBN13: 9780525937548
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20.0" x 20.0" x 20.0"

Customer Reviews

A sassy, energetic first novel

Newton's debut is the coming-of-age story of Lucas Martin, a high school senior in the increasingly urbanized suburbs of Long Island, New York. Lucas' father, Zeke, marries a steady, loving woman, gives up drinking and embarks on fatherhood with new zeal. Lucas, an honor student, responds by skipping school, drinking and drugging, and risking his future by sharing the petty criminalities and violence baiting behavior of his friend, Roar. Lucas clings to childhood by disrespecting his saintly stepmother at every opportunity (refusing her meals but sneaking down for leftovers), mouthing off to the guidance counselor whose goodwill he needs for a scholarship, and breaking into the school with Roar. Meanwhile he carries on dialogues with God and Satan and worries over his sexuality. He falls in love with a girl whose father is a professor and who's not likely to mess up her life. She takes control of the relationship but, although she's the first woman he's slept with under 40, Lucas does his best to alienate her too. Newton's prose is sassy and comic and full of energy. He brings to life the mess of a young man's mind, the lure of the streets, the pull of self-destruction. Although the dialogues with God and Satan are sometimes tedious and the ending abrupt and inconclusive, Newton's is a singular voice with plenty more to say.