Team Seven

Name: Team Seven
Brand: Dreamscape Media
Availability: InStock
Author: Marcus Burke
ISBN: 9781629236445

Author: Marcus Burke

Narrator: Arnell Powell, Simone Cook, and James Shippy

Unabridged: 8 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Published: 05/27/2014

Categories: Fiction, Coming Of Age

Synopsis

Set in the town of Milton, Team Seven follows young Andre Battel from age eight through his teenage years as he grows away from his Jamaican family, discovers genuine prowess on the basketball court, and eventually falls into a routine of dealing drugs for the local street gang, Team Seven. The story is told primarily through Andre's voice, but we also see things through the voices and points of view of his mother Ruby, a hard-working medical secretary, his older sister Nina, his mostly not-there-/usually-drunk-and-high father Eddie, a halfhearted reggae musician, and Reggie and Smoke, the kingpins of competing drug crews. What emerges is a rich portrait of a black family, a black community, and one young boy/man poised between youthful innocence and ambiguous experience.

About Marcus Burke

Marcus Burke grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. He attended prep school at Brimmer and May and played basketball at Susquehanna University, where he played varsity for all four years. But a knee injury limited his playing time, so he took up fiction writing instead and was accepted at the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he was awarded a grant in honor of James Alan McPherson from the University of Iowa MacArthur Foundation Fund. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lou on November 07, 2014

This is first person narrative, a voice out from the inner city, raw and unfiltered, true and close to the heart. The author has you hooked in this tale with one memorable character, through his school of hardnocks and coming of age. The dialogue and the storytelling flows and shows, unravelling and m......more

Goodreads review by Nickolas on January 07, 2014

Marcus Burke’s “Team Seven” is a raw, honest, and original exploration of one young man’s quest for identity and loyalty as he navigates the mean streets of a neighborhood near Boston. With brutally beautiful prose, Burke surveys an urban American landscape with a critical eye on notions of masculin......more

Goodreads review by Naomi on October 03, 2014

Marcus Burke's Team Seven is one of my favorite novels of 2014. It's a beautiful portrait of a young man coming of age in Boston's suburbs, and trying to balance the lures of the street, the mores of his family, and his own still-developing heart and mind. It's been a long time since I've read such......more

Goodreads review by kelly on April 19, 2017

Oh, this book is just flat out wrong. Where do I begin? First of all, this book had a lot of potential. It's the story of Andre Battel, a Jamaican-American boy growing up in the urban center of Boston around the 80s and 90s. We follow him from around age 7 or so until his late teens, though the way......more

Goodreads review by Brian on February 08, 2015

Thinkin' I'm so glad that I can read cause I can't move no dope. But I do know, a few that did and a few that still and a few that's through, are the few that's dead. Bricks. Interesting read.......more