Piri Thomas in his autobiography, Down These Mean Streets, describes the passionate, painful search to validate his manhood for which, with dead-pan cool, he had to fight, steal, submit to buggery, open his veins to any drug, take any dare, any risk. He has done it all in Harlem's mean streets and gone on from machismo to manhood, acquiring during the journey an understanding of man.

This is not a confirmation ritual imposed by what the sociologists call the "barrio subculture." This is a trial by ordeal that American society devises when it challenges a boy to feel like a man while he's up to his neck in the muck that is thrown at him.

Piri Thomas emerged from his ordeal like a phoenix out of the fire…. More important, perhaps, he has given us this document of how a boy grows up in hell.

His account is...