The waves they're making, though, are because their stories are included in a new book by Mark Salzman, who "discovered" them in writing classes he taught at Los Angeles' Central Juvenile Hall. Although the teens may not have lucrative book contracts (or clean records), they are profiled handsomely in Salzman's chronicle of his teaching experiences, True Notebooks. But before you wonder if this is one of those done-to-death "good white teacher saves bad kids of color" texts, understand that although those stories have their heartwarming place, Notebooks is different -- importantly, maybe brilliantly, different.
About a quarter of the book is comprised of the kids' own words, just as they were written in Salzman's sessions, and a lot of the rest is lovingly rendered, pull-no-punches dialogue apparently taken straight from the classroom. As Javier says, "Wanna know somethin' fucked up? Sometimes I don't even mind bein' in jail, I can forget I'm here. But when I think about life on the outs, all that shit from the past, that's when it hurts. It's like a knife goin' right into my head and then gettin' twisted around, like Chucky goin' crazy on me or somethin'." Such rough eloquence helps us understand why, halfway through the book, the author realizes that he has stopped thinking about the boys as criminals, and instead sees them as "good people." The truth is, at this point we know they are both. Have they killed? Yes. Have they changed? Anyone can see they have. Given how compelling their writing is, here's hoping we see them on the outs sometime.
