Dark Dude

From Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Oscar Hijuelos Comes A Riveting Young Adult Novel Set In The Late 1960S About A Haunting Choice And An Unforgettable Journey Of Identity, Misidentity, And All That We Take With Us When We Run Away.He DidnT Say Good-Bye. He DidnT Leave A Phone Number. And He DidnT Plan On Coming Back-Ever.Fifteen-Year-Old Rico Fuentes Has Had Enough Of Life In Harlem, Where His Fair Complexion-Inherited From An Irish Grandfather-Keeps Him Caught Between Two Cultures Without Belonging To Either. He Pours His Outsider Feelings Into A Comic Book Dark Dude, With His Friend Jimmy Illustrating. But When Gilberto, WhoS Always Looked Out For Rico, Moves To Wisconsin And Jimmy Loses Himself To An Insidious Habit, Rico Decides Enough Is Enough.With Jimmy In Tow, Rico Runs Away To The Midwest In Search Of Gilberto. The Heavily White Community Feels Worlds Away From Harlem, And For The First Time, Rico Sees What ItS Like To Blend In-No Longer The Dark Dude Or The Punching Bag For The Whole Neighborhood. But The Less Energy Rico Needs To Put Into Proving HeS Latino, The Less He Feels Like One. And The More He Gets To Know The People Around Him, The More ItS Clear That A Change In Location DoesnT Change Human Nature-And That ThereS No Such Thing As A Perfect Community.Faced With The Truth That There Are Things That CanT Be Cut Loose Or Forgotten, Things That Keep Him From Ever Having An Ordinary White KidS Life, Rico Must Decide Whether He Can Make A Home In The Place He Ran ToOr The One He Ran From.