Common Criminals

by Larry Fondation

Fiction. "[Fondation's] stark, hyperviolent, spookily erotic stories are absolutely addictive. COMMON CRIMINALS is a brilliant and claustrophobic rendering of life as it is lived in the cities of America today"-Barry Graham. "The inhabitants of Fondation's COMMON CRIMINALS are repelling and compelling, repulsive and attractive as they navigate life, compelled by the competing imperatives of their good intention and petty larcenous souls. A Dickens for the new millennium.This writer pulls no punches-he sees into the hearts and souls of LA and its inhabitants"-Sally Shore. "COMMON CRIMINALS will grab you where you live, and no let you up for breath"-Gary Phillips. "COMMON CRIMINALS is a dark account of LA alienation in a controlled style that sheds harsh, electrifying light on the darkness"-Ronald Sukenick.

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Larry Fondation has lived in LA since the 1980s and worked for fifteen years as an organizer in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, and East LA. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in a range of diverse publications including Flaunt (where he is Special Correspondent), Fiction International, Quarterly West, the Los Angeles Times and the Harvard Business Review.

Reviews

[Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

It begins with a character asking a homeless man for change--and it never lets up. It has that postmodern sensibility of a world without meaning or purpose. There's that King Lear feeling that the best we can do in such a world is "endure." But how? Well, for one, reading Larry Fondation. Not a bad way to go.

[L.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic