Out of the Madness
Read Out of the Madness Online
Authors: Jerrold Ladd
CRITICAL PRAISE FOR JERROLD LADD
AND
OUT OF THE MADNESS
“LADD INSPIRES HIS READERS WITH A ROUSING STORY OF PERSISTENCE AND TRIUMPH. A valuable book about the mental, physical, and
spiritual hardships of America’s worst ghettos.”
—
Washington Post
“A FRESH AND ANIMATED VOICE, OFFERING A VIEW INTO A BRUTAL ELEMENT OF AMERICAN SOCIETY.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“A RIVETING NEW BOOK.”
—
Philadelphia Inquirer
“HERE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE TESTAMENT TO THE INDOMITABILITY OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, WHICH IS DESTINED TO BECOME A CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN CLASSIC. Shows in vivid detail and unvarnished, unpretentious language why we must care about those trapped in America’s
ghettos, especially the young.”
—
Mark Mathabane, author of
Kaffir Boy
“JERROLD LADD IS A REMARKABLE INDIVIDUAL…. [He] offers some profound thoughts on why and how society must solve its racial
problems before the problems destroy the nation.”
—
Abilene Reporter News
“WE HAVE THIS MIRACLE, THE MIRACLE OF THIS AMAZING PIECE OF WRITING…. I could hardly believe that I was reading something
so good and so fresh from a source that defies all the numerical odds of great literature.”
—
William Zinsser, author of
On Writing Well
“LADD IS TRULY A LIVING TESTIMONY THAT YOUR SURROUNDINGS DON’T AUTOMATICALLY DICTATE WHO YOU WILL BE.”
—
Macomb Daily
(MI)
“AN OUTSTANDING WRITER WHOSE STORY IS COMPELLING.”
—
Napa Valley Register
“HIS PASSION SHINES THROUGH…. Ladd’s plight is touching.”
—
Arizona Republic
“MOVING.”
—
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A BEACON OF HOPE FOR BLACK YOUTHS BORN TO DESPAIR.”
—
Newark Star-Ledger
“FAST-PACED AND UNBLINKING…. Ladd shows us how sheer force of the human spirit can overcome the worst of odds.”
—
Greensboro News & Record
“IMPASSIONED.”
—
Tallahassee Democrat
Some of the names and identifications of people who appear in this book have been changed to protect their privacy. Such names
are marked by an asterisk when they first appear.
Copyright © 1994 by Jerrold Ladd
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56495-3
This book is dedicated to every black who would rather
be burned at the stake than die with no honor
.
“Be not conformed to the ways of this world but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
—Romans 12:2
C
ONTENTS
CRITICAL PRAISE FOR JERROLD LADD AND OUT OF THE MADNESS
NTRODUCTION
by Mark Mathabane
B
lack parents rose in the morning and turned into the living dead,” writes Jerrold Ladd in his searing autobiography chronicling
the nightmares and horrors he witnessed and experienced coming of age in the drug-infested, poverty-stricken and violent ghettos
of Dallas.
Raised by an abusive and drug-addicted mother, whose own mother had abused her and died from a drug overdose, Jerrold, a precocious
and sensitive child, soaked in all the phantasmagoric goings-on of that netherworld of lost souls in which violence, casual
sex, poverty and drugs were a daily fixture.
At seven he witnessed two bigoted white policemen almost let his mother be killed by drug dealers she had crossed. While still
a child he suffered the ultimate man-child trauma when his mother’s philandering and drug habit drove his father to abandon
them. And before Jerrold reached his teens he had seen friends murdered or transformed into dope fiends, thieves and prostitutes,
by poverty, parental neglect, broken homes, lack of opportunity and racism.
Remarkably, Jerrold not only survived, he did so with his intellect and soul intact. His experiences and enormous talent have
made him one of the most powerful young black writers to emerge on the contemporary literary scene and to give impassioned
utterance to the voiceless and disenfranchised millions who daily languish and die in the Sowetos and Beiruts of America.
Jerrold’s story speaks for and to a generation. He tells us, in riveting and poignant details, without self-pity and with
eloquent rage, about his complicated relationships with “Momma,” his strong-hearted but naive older sister Sherrie, and his
quiet, children-loving brother Junior. He introduces us to a motley of unforgettable characters who peopled the projects of
Dallas: Ugly Biggun, the bully; his mother’s string of lovers; grandmotherly Ruthy Mae, “who gave like Jesus”; the “Afro bandits,”
who executed people in the drug trade; and the many hardworking men and women who miraculously found ways to survive in the
raging hell which daily twisted the humanity of countless of their brethren into something almost bestial.
Through Jerrold’s eyes we feel the degradation suffered by blacks quarantined in America’s ghettos, and the desperation with
which they often seek solace and meaning for their hopeless lives in religion, alcohol, casual sex and drugs. We grieve with
him at the sheer waste of young black lives deprived of hope, guidance and support. And lastly, we rejoice and marvel when
he miraculously makes it
Out of the Madness
.