American Skin, Paperback

American Skin was first published in the United Kingdom to resounding acclaim after the author used his last seventy-five dollars to make an unsolicited submission to the publisher of the Scottish beats, whose work he admired. It is a timeless story about a young man's coming-of-age as well as a stunning portrait of the class and racial tensions that pervade our society.
Alex Verdi is on the lam, fleeing from the police who have arrested his parents on drug charges and want him for questioning. Traveling to Chicago, he joins a multiracial group of anti-Nazi skinheads and embarks on an odyssey that takes him from the city's embattled streets to an Army boot camp to Northwestern's plush campus, and finally lands him amid the horrors of maximum-security prison.
In this intense and gripping debut, Don De Grazia confirms his stature as a young writer of uncommon seriousness and consummate artistry.

Don De Grazia, a former factory worker, bouncer and soldier, is a professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College in Chicago and the editor of F Literary Magazine, a journal devoted to new fiction. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.