This Way Out is a gutsy, coming-of-age novel that may rip your heart out. Part historical fiction, set in Philadelphia during the tumultuous 1960s, This Way Out is the story of three inseparable friends on a forced march through a long, often entertaining, sometimes harrowing journey.
A reckoning is coming.
Surrounded by a ten-foot wall, The Dumonde College for Boys, a centuries-old institution, is home to sixteen hundred fatherless and orphaned White boys.
Beyond the north wall, a Black neighborhood crumbles and erupts, roiling to integrate the all-White Dumonde campus. Protesters circle the gates, day and night.
Beyond the south wall, defeat exhausts the lowest White people.
In between lies a stronghold, where the stoic Dumonde boys live behind the times, disregarding a world in turmoil shaking their walls. Read more
The Dumonde College for Boys is a hall of mirrors populated by devils disguised as caretakers and some precious few better angels. And around every turn, a whacked boy lurks.
No boy here gets the childhood he imagines. What these boys share may be enough to survive severe conditions where fear is commonplace, and friendships nurture courage. There are no metaphors for childhood. Nothing else resembles it. All these orphaned boys are seeking a way out. For some, it may be too late.
