'The Color Midnight Made' by Andrew Winer

7/7/02
Reviewed by Sarah Gianelli

Andrew Winer's heartbreaking, wise and beautiful novel unfolds through the experience of Conrad Clay, a colorblind white boy growing up in a mostly black, poor part of San Francisco. Try as he might, Conrad can't hold his loved ones together-his mother, fixated on her failing marriage; his father, a drinker prone to violence and recently out of a job; his grandmother, the only person he trusts; and Loop, his best friend, who doesn't want to hang out with him anymore. As his world falls apart around him, Conrad's search for love and acceptance introduces him to the very grown-up world of poverty and racial division that surrounds him.