Aven'u Boys - Paperback

by Frank Pugliese (Author)

A glimpse into urban youth survival. When three Brooklyn Italian teenagers murder an innocent boy, they are immediately faced with the choice of redemption or naïve bravado. Like a slow-brewing cancer, this nightmare unwarily grows and festers within and ultimately overcomes each of them at a time when a child normally grows into the responsible decision-making adult they should become.

"AVEN'U BOYS is not for those with a low tolerance for verbal and visual violence, but it can be enthusiastically recommended to anyone who wants to step into a fever dream of urban America 1993, as searingly realized by a new and gifted 29-year-old playwright named Frank Pugliese...his gripping style, in which fragmented dialogue and incidents seem to slice through the night like switch blades, casts its own disturbing spell. The playwright is less interested in drawing pat conclusions than in jolting the audience into a world it might ordinarily ignore... Such is the tragic context of AVEN'U BOYS that these battered women seem the last, best hope for salvation in a city poised for civil war."
Frank Rich, The New York Times