| Summary: | The true story of a crime and a criminal and of the Latin-American slum world that produced them both. Manuel Garces was 17 in 1962, when he was arrested for the brutal murder of a respectable, middle-aged Valparaiso lawyer, and his case made headlines in every Chilean newspaper. His youth and his look of dark innocence - the newspaper photographs showed a T-shirted, blue-jeaned little boy lost - were in sharp contrast to the crime of which he was accused - shocking, sordid and senseless, and as destructive of its victim's reputation as of his life. To the author, both crime and criminal demanded explanation, and he arranged to visit Manuel in prison, where the boy was held with other juvenile offenders and deserted children, all of whom were preyed on by the older, hardened criminals. The story Manuel told - of a rootless, fatherless childhood, of brutality and neglect, of petty thieveries, of the "good times" of drink and casual sexual encounters, all climaxing in an ugly and meaningless murder - is reported here with compassion and unflinching honesty. Manuel is more than the documentary account of a tragedy. In this portrait of a wasted life in a hopeless world, we see all the forces of impoverishment - both spiritual and economic - against which men and women all over the world are struggling today.-- Jacket flap.
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