Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets, Brookland, welcomes Tony Lewis to present his new book Slugg: A Boy's Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration.
Growing up, Lewis didn’t know that his family’s comfortable life had been made possible by crack. Then in 1989 a sting operation exposed his father as one of D.C.’s major drug kingpins. Lewis was just eight when his father was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. As the family suddenly struggled with poverty, violence, and mental illness, the boy took a look at his options and rejected the criminal life. Now an activist, Lewis is the founder of Sons of Life and works on issues involving the effects of incarceration on children. His powerful memoir is both a vivid picture of communities torn apart by drugs in the 1980s and ‘90s and a frank look at how individuals cope with the myriad problems drugs bring with them.
