The Old Neighborhood

"A raucous but soulful account of growing up on the mean streets of Chicago, and the choices kids are forced to make on a daily basis. This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal."—Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

"Bill Hillmann's The Old Neighborhood is like a right hook to the chin with brass knuckles, crackling with both bravery and urgency. Brilliantly evoking Nelson Algren's Neon Wilderness and Richard Price's The Wanderers , the novel is unflinchingly honest in its depictions of class and race, a deft portrait of our sometimes-less-than-fair city."—Joe Meno, best-selling author of Hairstyles of the Damned

A bright and sensitive teen, Joe Walsh is the youngest in a big, mixed-race Chicago family. After Joe witnesses his heroin-addicted oldest brother commit a brutal gangland murder, his friends and loved ones systematically drag him deeper into a black pit of violence that reaches a bloody impasse when his eldest sister begins dating a rival gang member.

Bill Hillmann is an award-winning writer and storyteller from Chicago, Illinois. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune , Newcity , Salon.com, and has been broadcast on NPR. He's told stories around the world with his internationally acclaimed storytelling series the "Windy City Story Slam." Hillmann is a union construction laborer and a bull runner in Spain, who in the not-so-distant past was a feared street brawler, gang affiliate, drug dealer, convict, and Chicago Golden Glove Champion.