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Title: Savage Streets
Author: William P. McGivern
Narrator: Al Dano
Format: Unabridged
Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
Language: English
Release date: 02-07-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
In McGiverns novel Savage Streets, upper-middle class children in a suburban community in New York City are being harassed by a gang of teenagers from the poorer part of town. When the adults of the community attempt to intervene, the situation escalates, resulting in terrible - and violent - consequences.
Members Reviews:
Gray flannel suit time.
Savage Streets by William P. McGivern, author of The Big Heat, takes place in one of Manhattan's bedroom community developments called Faircrest. It's about a group of otherwise law abiding neighbors who get carried away in their reaction to a couple of intimidating juvenile deliquents from the nearby town. The book's protagonist, John Farrell, is one of the more level headed of the aforementioned neighbors. But even he is swept up in the rather horrifying vigilanteism.
My thoughts about this book are ambivalent. On the one hand, within the pages of Savage Streets one can find an excellent depiction of the life and the social values of middle class suburbia circa 1950s. On the other hand, the novel's main plot thread; the conflict between the suburbanites and their teenaged adversaries seems unrealistic. A solid three stars.
This Book Asks Questions That Are Hard To Answer
McGivern wrote this book about a group of middle-class
suburbanites who turn vigilante.
He documents their change from law-abiding to law-breaking with
great care.
This reader believed it, every step of the way.
He sets up an entirely credible situation, with juvenile delinquents hassling the hero's
son.
The hero sees few legit avenues to handle this problem.
Regressing, he uses his own college-days football skills to knock them
around.
Retaliation follows.
He sees their home-life and meets one father.
There are no monsters in this book.
McGivern makes everyone human and understandable.
They may do things that are evil or wonderful.
But they always follow their own destiny.
As in every group, some have hotter heads that others.
The suburbanites preach violence against those who threaten their neighborhood.
The police see what might happen.
They try to slow down the hatred leading to
the suburbanites taking the law into their own hands and roughing up delinquents.
But it does not work.
In real life, as a police officer, I have investigated vigilantes and mob violence.
This book should be required reading in police academies.
Back in the book, a magazine writer warns the group that they are undoing all the laws
that Man has fashioned, down from the Greek and Roman ages.
They spurn his advice. One slaps him.
Being the choric element to this group is unpleasant.
It is the same way in real life.
The hero urges a fair deal for a delinquent.
A neighbor objects.
-He's not worth it,- the neighbor says.
-Then, none of us are,- the hero answers.
That sums it up.
This reader has never read a novel about vigilantes that was as well done and as
haunting as this one.
It makes any reader wonder what he or she would do.
Written more than fifty years ago, it rings as true as today's headlines.
-----Frank Hickey, writer of the Max Royster crime novels through Pigtown Books.
Savage Streets by William P. McGivern
Every man, and every community, has its breaking point. This is the arresting and powerful idea which is examined by William P.
