Cuz ─ The Life and Times of Michael A.

Michael Alexander Allen, baby cousin ofan extended family, was first arrestedat fifteen for an attempted carjacking.Tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteenyears, Michael served eleven. Three years afterhis release, he was shot and killed. Why? Why did this giftedyoung man, who dreamed of being a firefighterand a writer, end up dead? Why did he languishin prison? And why at fifteen was he in analley in South Central LA, holding a gun whiletrying to steal someone’s car? “Cuz” means both“cousin” and “because.” Danielle Allen grew upwith Michael and, in 2006 when Michael got out ofprison, was cousin-on-duty, shouldering the responsibilityto support his fresh start while juggling thedemands of her own promising academic career.In this Ellisonian story of a young African Americanman’s coming-of-age in late twentieth-centuryAmerica, and of the family who will always loveMichael, we learn how we lost a generation.