Gangs in Garden City will be on shelves starting Monday, June 29th. To celebrate, I’ll be doing a reading that night at the Half King on West 23rd Street at 10th Avenue. The reading starts at 7pm. For more info about the Half King or for directions, see their website: http://www.thehalfking.com/

An adaption of Gangs In Garden City ran in today’s New York Times. Make sure to check out the video, too.

Gangs in Garden City is coming out very soon! You can now pre-order from Amazon.

And here’s the starred Publisher’s Weekly review out this week:

As a media-stoked panic about immigrant youth gangs flared across the U.S. in the 1990s, national violent crime rates were actually plummeting, suggesting that “reports” of internationally networked Central American gangs invading idyllic American suburbs masked more than it revealed. Moreover, the image anticipated the post-9/11 panic over foreign terror cells that dovetailed with a renewed backlash against undocumented Latino immigrants. In this engrossing case study of suburban gangs in Long Island’s Nassau County, investigative journalist Garland demystifies the sensationalist rhetoric and simplistic media coverage stemming from the economic and demographic transformation of suburbia. Garland humanizes her subject through long-term, in-depth interviews with current and former gang members; extensive footwork across the U.S. and Central America; and a formidable command of relevant foreign and public policy decisions. While offering a detailed look inside such notorious gangs as Mara Salvatrucha and its self-styled affiliates, Garland makes a persuasive case that her subjects’ attraction to gang life had less to do with what gangs offered than with “what America did not.”

Sarah’s first book, Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation and Youth Violence Are Changing America’s Suburbs, published by Nation Books, comes out in June 2009. The book follows the path of Central American gangs from the streets of Los Angeles and El Salvador to the suburbs of Long Island, chronicling the immigration, criminal justice, and education policy failures that have contributed to their spread.