Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze

This is yet another memoir that is labeled fiction. I am not sure if it is a a trend but it is the third or fourth one I have read this year. This one was longlisted for the Booker prize last year, and submerges the reader in the life of a teen who is on the one hand drawn to the life of crime and gangs and drugs, but is on the other hand a good student with a rich intellectual life. The back and forth between the lure of learning and then the excitement of intimidating people, holding them with the threat of violence, despite the consequences, is not really better understood at the end of the book than at the beginning, at least not for me. I get that people who have little control over their lives enjoy exercising that over others, but still do not get the pull of that violence when it might mean the end of opportunity for oneself. It is well written but not illuminating for me.