Chasing America

the long version

"Chasing America is a roller-coaster ride through promise and poverty, affirmative action and addiction, and a story that captures a life and an era that is seminally American." "Born in Harlem in 1952, Dennis Watlington developed a heroin habit at the age of thirteen, kicked it, and received a scholarship to the Hotchkiss School, where he was elected president of his class. He went on to NYU, became involved in film and theater (he had a small role in The Deerhunter and helped give Bruce Willis his start in a play called Bullpen), got addicted to crack, kicked that, and became an Emmy Award-winning television writer." "Chasing American shows us the best and worst America offers to a black man - from the Jim Crow South to boarding-school life in New England to backstage at the Fillmore East to a holding cell in Bellevue Hospital."--BOOK JACKET.