Tattoos on the heart
2010
- christian life
- church work with juvenile delinquents
- anecdotes
- gangs
- christian life, anecdotes
- nyt:relationships=2014-09-07
- biography & autobiography / personal memoirs
- self-help / motivational & inspirational
- social science / sociology
- church work
The story
Father Boyle started Homeboy Industries nearly 20 years ago, which has served members of more than half of the gangs in Los Angeles. This collection presents parables about kinship and the sacredness of life drawn from Boyle's years of working with gangs.
What it’s like
Warm, unhurried and plainspoken, this is a book to read in short sittings with a cup of something hot, the kind of thing that suits a quiet evening or a slow Sunday morning. Its prose is conversational and sly, built from brief anecdotes and stories that are set in the everyday world of Los Angeles: a community garden, a bakery, a sparse office where a shaved-headed former gang member might walk in for a job. The sensory world is concrete but restrained, with tough streets and bruised lives sketched in a few exact details and then left behind for the laughter and tenderness that follow. Tone is humane and wry, more hopeful than sorrowful, with a steady undercurrent of grief handled gently. Violence and gang life are present as backstory and memory rather than on-page action, so there is no gore and little that is frightening, though the losses of young lives are real and told without flinching. Emotional arcs belong to people slowly trusting one another, and the chapters move at the pace of a conversation over coffee. It is for readers who want inspiration without sentimentality, and for anyone drawn to honest, faith-inflected stories about compassion.
More books like Tattoos on the heart
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Tattoos on the heartand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
