The Old Neighborhood

"A raucous but soulful account of growing up on the mean streets of Chicago, and the choices kids are forced to make on a daily basis. This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal."—Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

"Bill Hillmann's The Old Neighborhood is like a right hook to the chin with brass knuckles, crackling with both bravery and urgency. Brilliantly evoking Nelson Algren's Neon Wilderness and Richard Price's The Wanderers, the novel is unflinchingly honest in its depictions of class and race, a deft portrait of our sometimes-less-than-fair city."—Joe Meno, best-selling author of Hairstyles of the Damned

A bright and sensitive teen, Joe Walsh is the youngest in a big, mixed-race Chicago family. After Joe witnesses his heroin-addicted oldest brother commit a brutal gangland murder, his friends and loved ones systematically drag him deeper into a black pit of violence that reaches a bloody impasse when his eldest sister begins dating a rival gang member.

Bill Hillmann is an award-winning writer and storyteller from Chicago, Illinois. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, Salon.com, and has been broadcast on NPR. He's told stories around the world with his internationally acclaimed storytelling series the "Windy City Story Slam." Hillmann is a union construction laborer and a bull runner in Spain, who in the not-so-distant past was a feared street brawler, gang affiliate, drug dealer, convict, and Chicago Golden Glove Champion.