EDGE OF WHITENESS

 1969. Brooklyn smolders after the race riots. The Montaperto family reluctantly flees their beloved Italian neighborhood for a New Jersey suburb so painfully white that it makes the TV show, My Three Sons, appear exotic. The only excitement young Joey Montaperto finds is breaking into his neighbor’s house with his cousin Skinny on Saturday afternoons – to steal the raisins from their Post Raisin Bran. Until that first day of school in 1973. Forced integration delivers two busloads of inner-city black kids to Roselle High, sending a collective shiver through the all- white student body.

  “One by one they pour out, laughing, cursing and jive talking. Giants. Imposing black giants – and those were the girls! Then the boys swagger off the bus – or should I say grown men?”

Nothing would ever be the same.

    It isn’t long before the inevitable racial conflict becomes personal. After he’s saved from a hallway ambush by Na-Na, a brutal, yet artistic loner, their unlikely friendship turns Joey on to the cool world of black culture. Fascinated by the music of Etta James, Marvin Gaye, and The Funkadelics, he embraces the happenin’ scene. Soon he’s pimped out in purple Swedish knits (that were never worn in Sweden), Isaac Hayes glasses, and a sizzling Puerto Rican hairdresser on his arm, Esperanza. As she gives him a mod shag afro, Joey becomes obsessed with her. He whips himself into shape, boxing at a ghetto gym, and finds a dishwashing job at an Italian restaurant, so he can afford to take her out.

Only to discover that she already has a boyfriend, a dealer who’s getting her hooked on heroin.

   Reeling from heartbreak, Joey searches for meaning in his life, finding inspiration in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. His parent’s think he’s gone mad when he refuses his mother’s homemade Italian sausage, announcing “It’s hard to be a good Muslim in this house”. Joey freaks out his entire Catholic family – and the Mafia guys at work – as he finds his ‘soul’.

    Filled with heart and wisdom, The Edge of Whiteness, is an autobiographical account of one adolescent’s struggle to discover his identity. This timeless coming-of- age story is a humorous social commentary on the funky early 1970’s that is still remarkably relevant today.