Drowning Tucson

Hi-def, brutally honest tales from the streets of Tucson.

Set in Tucson’s toughest neighborhoods during the late 1980s, this riveting debut follows the disintegration of the Nuñez family and the people whose paths they cross. From young gangbangers to crooked cops, and from murderous vigilantes to prostitutes plying their trade along the “Miracle Mile,” each character’s destiny is linked by crushing poverty, the brutal codes of the street, and the harsh nature of the desert.

In this small city with major metropolis problems—a place of both drought and flood—“civilization” is every bit as dangerous as its surroundings. Like a southwest version of HBO’s The Wire, this heartrending novel is an episodic portrait of a desperate, violent America, populated by characters as lethal as they are sympathetic.

Publication date: May 1, 2010

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 6 x 9

Page count: 330 pages

ISBN: 9781566892407

Born in 1976, Aaron Michael Morales is the author of Drowning Tucson, his debut novel. Morales grew up in Tucson and at age ten, he became a paperboy for the Arizona Daily Star. Since then his jobs have ranged from working in a car parts factory to bartending in Chicago’s Oak Park neighborhood. Now, with a BA from Indiana State University and an MFA from Purdue University, Morales teaches writing and literature at Indiana State University and is working on his second novel.

“[Drowning Tucson] presents characters with depth and awareness who refuse to be defined by their circumstances, even when they cannot escape them. Morales, in a style reminiscent of Hubert Selby Jr. (Last Exit to Brooklyn), vividly details a community’s beauty and brutality.”

—The Chicago Tribune

“The bleakly human debut of the new Bukowski.” 

—Esquire

“Visionary . . . episodic, brutal, and honest.”

—Bookslut

“As heartbreaking as it is frightening. These are brutal and frequently riveting stories of the mean streets rendered in highly emotional, cinematic language.”

—Booklist

“[Drowning Tucson] presents a different view of Arizona than what the media have been showing . . . gives readers a place where Mexican/Chicago/Latino identity and culture are deeply rooted.”

—Rigoberto Gonzalez, National Book Critics Circle

“Morales is a master of the grab-you-by-the-throat opening line. . . . Morales makes it look easy.”

—The Collagist

“Morales’s vision shakes up the comfortable. The novel is impressive; his writing is powerful; his message is layered.” 

—Tucson Weekly

“Morales wrestles with nothing less than the parameters of the human soul.”

—Luis Alberto Urrea

“I am in awe of the muscular writing here, writing that is brave, honest, precise, and disciplined. Drowning Tucson took my breath away.”

—Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“You will not forget Drowning Tucson. The characters will haunt you, and even after you know the stories are getting to you, you won’t be able to stop reading this book.”

—Leslie Marmon Silko