Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption

Description

THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE HBO MINISERIES "Belkin so successfully evokes the city and its people that the reader is caught up in the battle . . . Show Me a Hero is a rich, well-told story" Chicago Tribune Yonkers, New Jersey, 1987. Nicholas Wasicsko, the city's ambitious young mayor is given a court order demanding that the city build public housing on the white, middle-class side of town in order to right what the judge saw as intentional, decades-long pattern of segregation. As these cosy neighbourhoods were faced with the reality of a truly diverse and accepting community, the city went into crisis. In the fine tradition of American reportage, Show Me a Hero is the story of a city divided by fear, racism, politics and even murder. It is also the story of the individuals whose lives were shattered by the meltdown: the young mother, the activist, the ambitious politician.

Lisa Belkin is the Senior National Correspondent for Yahoo News, covering American social issues. She is the author of three books - Life's Work, Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom, First, Do No Harm and Show Me A Hero which will air as an HBO miniseries in August 2015. She is also the editor of two anthologies. A graduate of Princeton University, she has returned there as a visiting professor in the Humanities Council, teaching narrative non- fiction as an instrument of social change.