B Benedict Braddock

A Street Called Pain B Benedict Braddock

Benny likes to party. He is tired with his white middle class suburban lifestyle and is drowning in the despair of a life that seems to produce nothing of true value. Fueled by the restlessness that comes from abuse of alcohol and narcotics he sets out to find something new, something else, something that will satisfy, on the street. Soon Benny meets Cole who will become for him a mentor of sorts in adjusting to the ways of the ghetto. Benny falls hard for a young African American girl and befriends several young thugs and together they spiral out of control and to new depths of madness. Along the way we are invited to examine places and ideas within ourselves as Benny does the same. "Have you every called anyone a nigger?" Benny asks, "Do you know what that meant or if you meant it at all?"

A Street Called Pain is on the surface a story of addiction and spiritual chaos but it takes us much deeper from there. From the very start we need to know what becomes of these young people and we need to answer the many questions Benny poses to us all. Where do you go when the world no longer seems to have a place for you but you are not yet ready to die?