The Corner by David Simon and Edward Burns
reviewed by John
The Corner is the true story of one year in the life of a family living in inner city Baltimore. Powerful and moving, it follows three family members as they stumble their way through addiction. Fifteen-year-old DeAndre McCullough is a dealer and a teen father. Gary, DeAndre's father, is a hopeless addict, battling cocaine and heroin at the same time. And Fran, DeAnde's mother, once poised to raise the family out of Baltimore and away from the drug corner forever, has come back to drugs as well.
The corner is the center of their world; it is where the police arrest, the touts sell, where those addicts await that high that they desperately seeking. The corner, to them at least, provides a feeling of stability that the family lacks. Brutally accurate, it shows us the utter disparity of drugs. And it gives us a real, completely true, illuminating look at how the Corner takes away your money, your friends, your family, and finally, your life.
Simon on the death of DeAndre McCullough
NYT obit
Simon's recent Sports Illustrated article about the Orioles
An earlier NPR interview with Ed Burns, former Baltimore detective and Simon's co-writier.