When he was three years old, James Reed lost his family to a raging apartment fire. Reed, taken in by his loving, but unwell grandmother, turned to the streets of Englewood, on Chicago's South Side, for survival at age eight. There he found the love and sense of belonging and purpose that he could not have with his family. Life in the street gang turned violent as Reed, often feeling angry and alone in the world, entered his teenage years. Reed embraced criminality as he floated from home to home, and in and out of juvenile detention. But it was also a time in his life when he fell in love, ran with a loyal crew, made lots of money, and traveled the country. Years later, from a downstate prison in his early 20s, Reed, with only an eighth grade education, began writing by hand story after true story of this reckless period in his life, a time, he now realizes, when he did not value his life or the lives of others-a time when he wanted to die and be with the family he never really knew. Drawing upon writing guides from the prison library, Reed developed his skills as a writer as he rewrote, revised, and structured the assorted recollections from his teenage years into a riveting, fully-formed manuscript.

Escaping Death's Grip, with an Afterword by University of Chicago sociologist Chad Broughton, is Reed's autobiography of growing up in Englewood. With violence spiking in Chicago, Escaping Death's Grip is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about the streets from someone who lived them.