THREE SIDES TO EVERY STORY

“Nero kicks it off the hinges with his bold new urban drama.”
- Omar Tyree, Best selling Author of Flyy Girl and Leslie

Johnny and Tonya are high school sweethearts in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, but their romance is shattered when Tonya is grabbed by her ex-boyfriend. Johnny, in a burst of rage, attacks her ex, seriously hurting him, and is imprisoned as a result.
           
At first Tonya stands by Johnny as he serves his sentence, but eventually she finds comfort in the arms of a famous rapper who fulfills her dreams of being a dancer in music videos. Meanwhile, in prison, Johnny meets the openly gay James. What begins as a friendship as James tutors Johnny for his GED soon evolves into an intimate relationship and a sexually passionate romance that is cut short when James is released on parole. A year later, Johnny leaves prison, too, haunted by his feelings for both James and Tonya.

Tonya, who’s left her rapper behind, hears of Johnny’s release and plans to make their love last forever when she reunites with her old flame. And James, who turns out crowds as a legendary drag queen performer at Club Circus in the French Quarter, becomes furious once he realizes that Johnny is free but hasn’t made contact with him.

Each of their lives is soon turned into an emotional roller coaster. Inviting comparison to E. Lynn Harris, Clarence Nero creates a compelling, layered narrative while illuminating the social and sexual challenges young urban black folks face today.

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CHEEKIE: A CHILD OUT OF THE DESIRE

Selected as One of the Best First Novels of 1998 by Library Journal

The Desire Project in New Orleans, once the pride of public housing, was home for Cheekie, as it had been for his parents and grandparents. But now, in the 1970s, the Desire has degenerated into a world of violence, drugs, and poverty. Still the project is full of life as well, and of people whose vibrant energy, love of fun and ties of family help them to transcend their oppressive surroundings. There was his teenaged mom and her best friend, Li’l Soul, the mysterious Ms. Saphena who lived in the apartment downstairs, his strong and sometimes volatile Grandmother Pam, and many others.

Cheekie is a young man’s powerful day-by-day account in the honest voice of a boy growing up in the Desire. Told with the wonder and freshness of a boy’s perspective, Cheekie brings it all to life--the abuse and the love, the neglect and the nurturing, the violence and the inspiration through which a child came to manhood.

Cheekie is a tale of hope, for it is the story of one young man’s escape from the violent world of the Desire and his journey toward success.

PRAISE

“Cheekie offers a little bit of everything; humor, drama, tragedy, and mostly an uplifting sense of entertainment.”
- HARPO Productions

“Highly debut…the novel sensitively reflects the lives of the less fortunate who are left behind.”
- Publishers Weekly

“So well written that you feel as if you’re peering through the window of Cheekie’s life.”
- Sister 2 Sister

  “Written by a promising young African American author…”
- Library Journal

“The author show the triumphs and tragedies of living in the ghetto.”
- Ebony Magazine

“Rings with the truth of memory…there are many strong black women in this novel.”
- New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “…A lively, indiscreet, sometimes hilarious, often poignant narrator, who paints a vibrant, emotionally intense picture of his family and neighbors. Nero evokes both the humorous and the more horrific aspects of what it’s like to grow up as the child of parents who are only just starting to grow up themselves.”
- Christian Science Monitor

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