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Journalist Steve Lopez on the "Badlands" of Philadelphia

Columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer Steve Lopez. He's just written his first novel, "Third and Indiana" about the hard life of North Philly. The origin of the story was a two-paragraph item Lopez read in the paper about a 14-year-old boy shot and killed on a drug corner. He was disturbed by the casualness and brevity of the report. Terry talks with Lopez about his new book, and about his popular columns.

22:40
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Other segments from the episode on September 15, 1994

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, September 15, 1994: Interview with Steve Lopez; Interview with Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; Review of the album "Brain, Kell, Goossens Play Schumann & Beethoven."
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14:20

Growing Up in the Black Bourgeoisie

Sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has written a new book about the Black middle class, called "I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation." She follows the lives of six middle-aged, African American people on the "necessary losses" they paid for their privilege. Her book was written, in part, as a response to the 1957 book "Black Bourgeoisie," by the black sociologist Franklin Frazier.

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The Redemptive Power of Music, and Friendship

Three years ago, journalist Steve Lopez met a homeless musician on skid row in Los Angeles. He soon learned that the man, Nathaniel Ayers, had once been a promising violinist, and that he had left the Juilliard School because of his struggle with mental illness. Ayers is the subject of Lopez's new book, The Soloist.

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