Buck: A Memoir

A rebellious boy's journey through the wilds of urban America and the shrapnel of a self-destructing family--this is the riveting story of a generation told through one dazzlingly poetic new voice.
MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents: a mother who led the new nation's dance compa [...]
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A rebellious boy's journey through the wilds of urban America and the shrapnel of a self-destructing family--this is the riveting story of a generation told through one dazzlingly poetic new voice.
MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents: a mother who led the new nation's dance company and a father who would soon become a revered pioneer in black studies. But things fell apart, and a decade later MK was in America, a teenager lost in a fog of drugs, sex, and violence on the streets of North Philadelphia. Now he was alone--his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother locked up in a prison on the other side of the country--and forced to find his own way to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually, by any means necessary.
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"Buck" is a powerful memoir of how a precocious kid educated himself through the most unconventional teachers--outlaws and eccentrics, rappers and mystic strangers, ghetto philosophers and strippers, and, eventually, an alternative school that transformed his life with a single blank sheet of paper. It's a one-of-a-kind story about finding your purpose in life, and an inspiring tribute to the power of education, art, and love to heal and redeem us.
Praise for "Buck"
"Asante is the voice of a new generation. . . . You will love nearly everything about "Buck.""--"Essence"
"Frequently brilliant and always engaging . . . It takes great skill to render the wide variety of characters, male and female, young and old, that populate a memoir like "Buck." Asante is] at his best when he sets out into the city of Philadelphia itself. In fact, that city is the true star of this book. Philly's skateboarders, its street-corner philosophers and its tattoo artists are all brought vividly to life here. . . . Asante's memoir will find an eager readership, especially among young people searching in books for the kind of understanding and meaning that eludes them in their real-life relationships. . . . A powerful and captivating book."--Hector Tobar, "Los Angeles Times"
"A story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style."--Maya Angelou
"The debut of a remarkable talent almost lost to drugs, crime and violence . . . Asante's prose is a fluid blend of vernacular swagger and tender poeticism; it's no surprise that when he finally finds his feet again, the place he feels most affirmed is a spoken-word club. . . . Adolescents are notoriously myopic, but one of the great strengths of "Buck" is the range of perspectives and voices Asante weaves into what might have been a one-man show."--"Salon"
"'The fall in Killadelphia. Outside is the color of corn bread and blood. Change hangs in the air like the sneaks on the live wires behind my crib.' . . . There's a rare beauty in lines like these, paired with a sense of foreboding. They promise a book filled with fresh visions, vernacular grit, electricity and violence. They promise something different, and the book delivers. . . . "Buck"] is primarily a memoir of a young man's mis-education, re-education, self-education and street-education. . . . "Buck" is so honest it floats--even while it's so down-to-earth that the reader feels like an ant peering up from the concrete. It's a powerful book. . . . So pick up "Buck." You might even finish it in a single, indulgent afternoon. Asante is a hip-hop raconteur, a storyteller in the Homeric tradition, an American, a rhymer, a big-thinker singing a song of himself. You'll want to listen."--"The Buffalo News"