   |
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
STREET PHARM
If a brother wanna get ahead, he
gotta use every minute to better himself.
Everything I did made me better - tougher, stronger, richer,
smarter - or I didn't
do it.
Take high school. A waste of time. Nobody there taught me
what I needed to
survive on the streets...
Ty Johnson knows survival. Since inheriting his pop's business
at sixteen, Ty's developed smarts, skills, and mad discipline.
The supply game's in his blood. And life is pretty sweet when
you're on top.
But one slip - or one serious competitor - and life turns ugly
fast. Suddenly, Ty's got to rethink his whole strategy. And
for the #1 dealer on the streets, strategy is not just about
staying ahead. It's about survival.
REVIEWS
RICHIE'S PICKS
STREET PHARM is a tense, high-action tale involving a dark and deadly underworld, a father in an Upstate prison, a smooth-talking son with an tenuous position at the top of the heap who begins grappling with what is right and what is wrong, and the bright, determined young woman with a child of her own whom Ty meets at school.
First-time author Allison van Diepen, who has concluded the Brooklyn phase of her teaching career and returned home to Canada, does an excellent job of bringing to life a sympathetic teen character who is caught up in a dangerous and truly despicable lifestyle.
-- Richie Partington
Read the full review.
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
Grade 9 Up–Set in Brooklyn, this urban drama novel depicts Ty Johnson's life as a 17-year-old African-American drug dealer. Taking over his father's territory seemed to be all that to Ty when he was younger, but now he realizes that there is more to life–mainly forming a relationship with Alyse, a single mother and his classmate at the local continuation high school. Struggling to hold onto the pieces of his father's business, he faces competition from out of town and things get serious. Neither Alyse nor his mother knows what sort of work Ty does until he ends up in the hospital after a drive-by shooting. Then the teen leaves school completely and moves out of his mother's apartment. He must decide who he is as his life is threatened and he loses the people closest to him. Easy to read and written in street slang including drug references and profanity, this debut novel will appeal to reluctant readers.
-- Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library
VOYA
This rugged story examines the life of a young drug dealer caught between the banality of school and the world of crime. Ty knows how to survive on the streets. He has had to grow up in a hurry, inheriting his imprisoned father's drug trade. Ty is very good at it and likes the quick and easy money. His mother is clueless, wondering why he is doing so poorly in school. Ty's father expects him to keep the family business going until his release. Life gets really complicated for Ty when he falls for a classmate, an attractive, smart, unwed mother, Alyse. She despises drugs and what they have done to the neighborhood, unaware that her beau is successfully taking the local trade to a higher level. She believes in Ty and pushes him to stay in school and get his diploma. Things heat up when a rival gang moves in to take over. Will Ty become a violent gangster like his dad or start a new life with Alyse? Will he even survive? There is plenty of swearing, violence, and raunchy topics scattered in the dialogue and the action because this book takes a realistic look at life in a dangerous urban neighborhood. The author researched this story while working in a perilous inner-city Brooklyn high school. It is an eye-opening account of a nice kid who is caught between two worlds and has to make some tough decisions. It also conveys a poignant message for reluctant readers.
ROMANTIC TIMES BOOK REVIEWS
This book, set in inner-city Brooklyn, pushes the envelope of
edgy writing for teens. Now that his dad is in jail, 17-yr old
Ty is running the family business – dealing drugs –
and trying to keep the source of his income secret. When a new
dealer tries to take over his business, a turf war begins. Ty
tries to do the right thing for the business and his father,
but when it’s life and death, he may have to change his
business plan.
This doesn’t feel like a young-adult book – it’s
gritty, the slang rings true and the story is not pretty. Maybe
that’s why it works.
-- Taylor Morris
QUILL AND QUIRE MAGAZINE (STARRED REVIEW)
“[Allison] van Diepen has created a compelling, morally challenging, and emotionally rewarding work. Street Pharm is precisely the kind of book that will draw young readers and, more importantly, keep them reading….Street Pharm is a daring book…a gripping read that can be enjoyed as much by adults as by YA readers. With skilled characterization, tight plotting, and a sensitive ear for the language of the streets, Street Pharm is a remarkable achievement.”
FAZE MAGAZINE, Canada's #1 Teen Magazine
Ottawa resident Allison van Diepen drew on her experiences as a social studies teacher at one of Brooklyn's most dangerous public high schools. What resulted is her first novel, STREET PHARM, a gripping story about a teen drug dealer, Ty Johnson, with a serious reputation on the streets. The book's message is strong and its story is captivating.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Saturday September 9, 2006
Drugs and violence, but no glory at all
DAVID GOLDBERG
Why should we care about Ty Johnson, a 17-year-old "street pharmacist" who supplies dealers in his Brooklyn ghetto with crystal meth, cocaine and other drugs? In Allison van Diepen's first young-adult novel, the answer is found in how eagerly we turn the pages. When Ty's father is banished to prison, the family drug "empire" faces ruin, so Ty takes over. The options were few: flipping burgers or raking in thousands of dollars in cash a week from peddling drugs.
Street Pharm is Ty Johnson's first-person account of turbulent times. He's trying to carve his identity amid conflicts with family, school and the law. Ty's a charismatic, black, 6-foot-2 bodybuilder, a star basketball player and a hit with the ladies. As a drug lord, there's no margin of error: If he screws up, he faces a bullet in the head or a prison key that's tossed away.
Ty's a master of discipline and self-control. Although he refuses to use drugs himself, nothing gets in the way of his addicts or his turf. He stays "clean" by knowing the trail must never lead to him. He keeps cool during tense interrogations with the cops, and in making life-and-death decisions. In a world of violence and mayhem, Ty doesn't pack a piece. It's fists and smarts that keep him on top.
Johnson's maturity and smarts command the respect of Sonny, who built the business with Ty's father and is more than a decade older. To keep his edge, Johnson meditates on the maxims from his favourite book, Sun Tzu's The Art of War: "Know your enemies. Figure out their next move before they do. Never show weakness." When ruthless Miami operators muscle in on his territory, he orders one of his own to infiltrate the gang and supply intelligence, so he can strike his enemies at their weakest point.
Eventually, drug dealing and crime take their toll. Ty is badly wounded in a drive-by shooting, and he has to summon up the courage to deliver the eulogy for Sonny, his partner in crime and best friend. Ty was helpless when his Uncle Jean's life was snuffed out by crack, and he had to bear the humiliation of his father being locked up for years in Sing Sing. Alyse, Ty's beloved girlfriend, renounces him because of his criminal ways. Ty clashes with his mother, who scorned her husband's lifestyle and his money. With his own life about to hit the skids, Ty has the toughest call of all. Keep generating cash, or face his father's fury for throwing away the family business.
As a teacher in one of "Brooklyn's toughest schools," van Diepen points to the only out for Johnson: school. Yet his priority is his drug ring, and he fabricates bold excuses to cut class when his pager rings. Van Diepen shows the school administrators and teachers blending compassion and stringent rules to try to reach Ty, and to set a standard for him to attain. Ty wavers about returning to school, especially since he'd be deprived of his position as "king of the streets."
Is this something your teen should be reading any time soon? It is. After all, these topics aren't new to teenagers, who see and hear it all, on the Internet and on television, in films, videos and music that glorify drugs, violence and "bad boy cool." Street Pharm pierces through the "glamour" and exposes the underbelly: the perils of hard drugs, the perpetual deceit practised on loved ones, the physical mayhem, ruined lives and interrupted educations.
Commenting on the danger facing boys in this milieu, the author says, "I've known a number of male students who had it all -- smarts, looks, personality -- but who made life decisions that led them to drop out of school or end up in jail or worse." Van Diepen's keen eye and ear bring the teens' world to life: hip hop, clothes, customs, thoughts and culture. The author skillfully captures the social, physical and emotional costs of a young drug lord trying to keep it together in an unsettling urban landscape.
-- David Goldberg is a Toronto writer specializing in adolescent issues.
A Taste of
the Street
Chapter 1
Tyrone Johnson, Self-Made Man
"What are you gonna be when you grow up?" That's what most kids
got asked.
Not me.
Mom always asked me what I wasn't gonna be, and you know what
she wanted me to say?
A dealer, stealer, free-wheeler, player, hater, a downright
dog - that's what my dad was.
When I came home from school, Mom was on the couch watching
Dr. Phil. As usual.
"How was school, baby?"
"Good." No way I was gonna tell her I got kicked out. Really
ass-to-the-curb kicked out this time. Starting tomorrow, I was
supposed to show up at some alternative school.
"You working hard?"
"Yeah." Sweet, clueless Mom never noticed that I hadn't carried
a book bag since the ninth grade.
"There's beef patties in the oven."
I checked the clock: 3:37 PM. She'd be getting up from the sofa
in about three minutes, getting ready for fifteen, and out the
door in twenty.
When the commercial came on, Mom went to her room. I attacked
the patties, only stopping to add more ketchup. A few minutes
later, she came back into the kitchen in her grocery store uniform,
her name tag already pinned on like she was proud or something.
"You working tonight?" she asked me.
"Yeah." I gave up my cheek for a kiss while guzzling o.j. and
she threw on her coat and hurried out the door.
Mom thought I worked at The Flatbush Sports Club on Atlantic
Avenue. I ain't worked there a day in my life - but the manager
owed me. He was one of my customers.
Time to get down to this brother's real bread-and-butter.
I took out my cell and speed-dialed Sonny.
"Ty! What the fuck's going on? Why'd you turn off your cell?"
"Mind your business. What's going on?"
"I need your help, son. Tonight we got us some deliveries."
"Already got some."
"Well I got more for you."
"Go on."
I wrote the stuff in my Palm Pilot.
"Hold up," I said, "who's this Schultz guy?"
"A new customer I met last week. Told him we was getting a shipment
with the hottest shit this side of Bogota. He gonna drop five
Gs!" "You ain't kidding. How'd he find out about us?"
"In the fucking yellow pages."
"Seriously, Sonny, who told him?"
"Who? Shit, like he was gonna tell me! What, you think his friend
wants a finder's fee or something?"
"Listen, if you so confident about him, you make the delivery."
"Can't, I promised Desarae we'd see a late movie. Schultz wants
the stuff at ten."
"I'm not making this delivery unless you gimme some reason to
think he ain't a cop."
"Ty, this guy ain't 5-0. Don't you think I can sniff out a cop
by now?"
"I ain't risking my neck on your sense of smell, Sonny. Tell
Michael Brown to make the delivery."
Michael Brown.
That little brother'd win the award for the most eager young
hustler in Flatbush.
Quick, reliable.
Fourteen years old.
"A'ight, I'll tell Michael," Sonny said. "He can drop some stuff
off at the Wilkes place too."
That was what I liked about Sonny. He talked the shit, but when
push came to shove, he always backed down. He knew the game
was in my blood.
***
 Order
it from Amazon Order
it from Chapters
|
|
|
|
|
|
