2006 - House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City
by Michael Downs
Finalist in the 2008 Sayoran International Prize for Writing, sponsored by Stanford University Libraries and the William Sayoran Foundation.
Finalist in the Connecticut Book Awards in the Biography or Memoir category.
“Combining a reporter’s eye for detail, the breathless narrative rush of an action movie and the generous heart of a hometown boy desperately trying to make sense of a place gone terribly wrong, Downs examines the social and economic disintegration of Hartford, Conn., in the 1990s through the coming-of-age of five African-American teenage boys. . . . The first half of the book flows with the power and grace o
f a finely tuned magazine article.”—Publishers Weekly
“Amid the broken glass that glitters on abandoned lots, amid the sense of abandonment and hopelessness, there beats the heart of an ancient city that refuses to die. And we’re still here. At its heart, House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City is a lavish love letter to Connecticut’s capital city.”—Susan Campbell, Hartford Courant
