The Life and Times of Michael A.

This fierce family memoir is so tender yet courageous that it renders mass incarceration nothing less than a new American tragedy. Danielle Allen’s shattering work shifts between a woman’s private anguish over the loss of her beloved baby cousin and a scholar’s fierce critique of the American prison system. In seeking answers to what felt unanswerable for many years, she delves into the questions of why her cousin, a young man with ambitions of becoming a firefighter and a writer, ended up dead, why he languished in prison, and why, at the age of fifteen, he was in an alley in South Central Los Angeles, holding a gun while attempting to steal someone’s car.

Cuz, both a term of endearment for cousin and a shorthand for "because," unfolds a "new American story" in this searing memoir. Allen reveals a world tragically transformed by the sudden availability of narcotics and the rise of street gangs, followed by a reactionary War on Drugs that devastated not only South Central L.A. but virtually every urban center in the nation. Thirteen-year-old Michael Allen is suddenly thrown into this cauldron, a violent world where he is tried at fifteen as an adult for an attempted carjacking, and is then sent, along with an entire generation, cascading into the spiral of the Los Angeles prison system.

Throughout her cousin Michael’s eleven years in prison, Danielle Allen, who became a dean at the University of Chicago at the age of thirty-two, remained psychically bonded to her self-appointed charge, visiting Michael in prison and corresponding with him regularly. When she finally welcomed her baby cousin home, she adopted the role of "cousin on duty," devotedly supporting Michael’s fresh start while juggling the demands of her own academic career. However, even Allen’s unwavering devotion could not save Michael from the brutal realities encountered by newly released young men navigating the streets of South Central. The corrosive entanglements of gang warfare, combined with a star-crossed love for a gorgeous woman driving a gold Mercedes, would ultimately be Michael’s undoing.

In this Ellisonian story of a young African American man’s coming-of-age in late twentieth-century America, we learn how we lost an entire generation. Cuz heartbreakingly reveals the harsh realities faced by Michael and his peers, painting a vivid picture of the devastating effects of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs. Through Allen’s personal reflections and scholarly critiques, we gain a deeper understanding of the tragedy that has befallen countless individuals and communities across America.

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