KEY POINTS:
It happens all the time to sociologists. You're out there doing your field research when your subject matter takes you hostage. A bit later, your subject matter orders you to be enforcer for a crack dealer.
A bit later still, the cops start wondering which side you are on. It happened to Sudhir Venkatesh in Chicago, when he went to the South Side's Robert Taylor Housing Projects, "one of the worst ghettos in America".
He went because he was dissatisfied with the remote, statistics-juggling nature of his graduate course. He wanted to make contact with the people involved. His first encounter, with clipboard and questions, was with the Black Kings, who assumed he was a spy for a Mexican gang, and couldn't decide whether to shoot him or stab him.
It marked the start of almost 10 years in the projects, making friends with JT the gang leader, watching him carry out drug deals, trying to find a decent apartment for his mother, hospitalising anyone who challenged his authority.
Slowly, carefully, respectfully, "Mr Professor" gets to know the people behind the scowls: JT himself, college student in history and politics, who dropped out after whites were repeatedly given preferential treatment.
T-Bone in his bright green Chevy Malibu; C-Note, the handyman and hustler; Lenny, the political instructor, who also hangs misbehaving young gang members upside down over the freeway as cars approach. He meets the matriarchs, who work to keep something approaching normal life in the housing projects: JT's Mom, with her apron reading "God Bless"; Mrs Bailey, landlady and possible extortionist.
It could so easily be a hip, cool, self-promoting narrative. Instead, it is modest, sober, humble. Venkatesh admits all his ignorance and mistakes. It's also a precise, lucid and instantly absorbing book; the guy is emphatically a writer. Recommended reading for town planners and the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.
Gang Leader for a Day - By Sudhir Venkatesh
(Allen Lane $37)
-NZ Herald
