Gabriel's fire

the long version

"Like many boys, Luis Gabriel Aguilera grew up with cartoons, music, friends, and first loves. A Mexican immigrant, he came of age in a Polish neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago that was encroached upon by threats of gangs and drugs. He attended Catholic school and, at age thirteen, began an affair with one of the teachers at the local elementary school. All the while he documented these years in a series of journals, which have now grown into Gabriel's Fire.". "Both a picture of American culture of the 1980s and 1990s and a coming-of-age story, Gabriel's Fire counters mainstream and mass-mediated images of the inner city, Hispanic culture, and troubled youth. In its honesty and energy, it is a poignant and compelling story of one man's formative years."--BOOK JACKET.