The Corner : A year in the life of an inner-city neighbourhood

A devastating portrait of the American drugs war, from the creators of the award-winning series The Wire

The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known—and cautiously avoided—by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner’s 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling story of this desolate crossroad.

Through the eyes of one broken family—two drug-addicted adults and their smart, vulnerable 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCollough—Simon and Burns examine the sinister realities of inner cities across the country and unflinchingly assess why law enforcement policies, moral crusades, and the welfare system have accomplished so little. This extraordinary book is a crucial look at the price of the drug culture and the poignant scenes of hope, caring, and love that astonishingly rise in the midst of a place America has abandoned.

Praise for The Corner:

‘A dense, mind-blowing 600-page doorstop…less a book, more a way of life…The characters in this story are real without trying…you’ll find yourself struck by the sheer poetry of the prose’

The Times

‘Brave, unblinkered, and heartbreaking.’

New York Times Book Review

‘A towering achievement. By narrowing their focus to a single American inner-city neighbourhood, Simon and Burns end up telling something broader in scope, even epic. These singular stories of tragedy and triumph, love and despair tell us more about what’s plaguing big cities than a thousand studies. The Corner should be required reading for every public official in America—and beyond. The rest of us will simply read The Corner because it is more touching, mesmerising, maddening, heartbreaking and, ultimately, profound than anything we’re likely to encounter in fiction.’

Linwood Barclay, author of NO TIME FOR GOODBYE

‘The Corner matters, the way its predecessor, Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets mattered…They matter because they’re both examples of the kind of in-depth social reportage that is, in both Britain and the States, crawling into its death-bed…David Simon and Ed Burns are ideal chroniclers: humane, passionate, wise…Read The Corner, if for no other reason than to find out the heartbreaking human dramas we are missing.'

Scotsman