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Overview
While Felicia is a brilliant actor in a truly chilling role, what's most remarkable about "Snoop" is what she has overcome in her life. Snoop was born a three-pound cross-eyed crack baby in East Baltimore. Those streets are among the toughest in the world, but Snoop was tougher. The runt of the ghetto showed an early aptitude for drug slinging and violence and thrived as a baby gangsta until she landed in Jessup state penitentiary after killing a woman in self-defense. There she rebelled violently against the system, and it was only through the cosmic intervention of her mentor, Uncle Loney, that she turned her life around. A couple of years ago, Snoop was discovered in a nightclub by one of The Wire's cast members and quickly recruited to be one of television's most frightening and intriguing villians.While the story of coming up from the hood has been told by Antwone Fisher and Chris Gardner, among others, Snoop's tale goes far deeper into The Life than any previous books. And like Mary Karr's story, Snoop's is a woman's story from a fresh point of view. She defied traditional conventions of gender and sexual preference on the hardest streets in America and she continues to do so in front of millions of viewers on TV.
Synopsis
While Felicia is a brilliant actor in a truly chilling role, what's most remarkable about "Snoop" is what she has overcome in her life. Snoop was born a three-pound cross-eyed crack baby in East Baltimore. Those streets are among the toughest in the world, but Snoop was tougher. The runt of the ghetto showed an early aptitude for drug slinging and violence and thrived as a baby gangsta until she landed in Jessup state penitentiary after killing a woman in self-defense. There she rebelled violently against the system, and it was only through the cosmic intervention of her mentor, Uncle Loney, that she turned her life around. A couple of years ago, Snoop was discovered in a nightclub by one of The Wire's cast members and quickly recruited to be one of television's most frightening and intriguing villians.
While the story of coming up from the hood has been told by Antwone Fisher and Chris Gardner, among others, Snoop's tale goes far deeper into The Life than any previous books. And like Mary Karr's story, Snoop's is a woman's story from a fresh point of view. She defied traditional conventions of gender and sexual preference on the hardest streets in America and she continues to do so in front of millions of viewers on TV.
Publishers Weekly
Pearson, who stars in HBO's The Wire, was born ill and underweight from her mother's drug habits, and later worked for a crack dealer in East Baltimore. At age 15 she killed a woman in self-defense and wound up in the Jessup State Penitentiary. She got a wakeup call when the notorious dealers she called "Uncle" and "Father" wound up respectively dead and imprisoned for life. Once out on parole, Pearson took an assembly-line job and "didn't give [her neighborhood dope dealers] a second glance," but after repeatedly getting fired because of her rap sheet, she returned to dealing before a chance meeting gave her a way off the street for good. This isn't a light celebrity bio, but a powerful story of someone trying to find her way in a dark world, realizing she can still choose her life's direction even in tremendously difficult circumstances. Pearson's narrative is spare, even poetic, rendering traumatic moments all the more powerful. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
From Barnes & Noble
"I'm not making excuses," this memoir begins, "and I'm not feeling sorry for myself. Don't expect you to feel to sorry for me, especially now that things have turned around. Just want to tell my story while it's fresh." If any one has a right to make excuses, it would be Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, the author of Grace After Midnight. She stopped breathing at the hospital where she was born, but the doctors somehow found a way to revive this quivering, cross-eyed, crack-addicted three-pound baby. Her violent, disturbing story snaps us to attention like a chain reaction car crash and then leaves us, sitting in wonderment, thankful that we're alive.Ebony
A gripping story about overcoming obstacles in the face of great adversity and finding hope in the most unlikely place-television.Allhiphop.com
A remarkable book about a remarkable lady...will encourage anyone who aspires to be bigger and better than what they are...an awesome book to give to a young person as a Christmas gift.Essence
This is no rage-to-riches story. In fact, it reads more like a miracle.Giant
Read her intriguing life story...it's a short, punchy ride of a book.Publishers Weekly
Pearson, who stars in HBO's The Wire, was born ill and underweight from her mother's drug habits, and later worked for a crack dealer in East Baltimore. At age 15 she killed a woman in self-defense and wound up in the Jessup State Penitentiary. She got a wakeup call when the notorious dealers she called "Uncle" and "Father" wound up respectively dead and imprisoned for life. Once out on parole, Pearson took an assembly-line job and "didn't give [her neighborhood dope dealers] a second glance," but after repeatedly getting fired because of her rap sheet, she returned to dealing before a chance meeting gave her a way off the street for good. This isn't a light celebrity bio, but a powerful story of someone trying to find her way in a dark world, realizing she can still choose her life's direction even in tremendously difficult circumstances. Pearson's narrative is spare, even poetic, rendering traumatic moments all the more powerful. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationVOYA
Felicia Pearson, dubbed "Snoop," was born addicted to crack. Her youth was spent on the tough streets of East Baltimore, where she proved that she was capable of the violence it takes to survive. Despite the love of her foster parents, her real mentors were sophisticated drug dealers who saw something special in the small but ferocious girl. By the time she was barely into her teens, Pearson was charged with murder and locked up in the penitentiary. But after her release from prison, Pearson landed a role on the television show, The Wire, playing a street assassin in the same Baltimore neighborhoods of her youth. Entertainment Weekly described her performance as, "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series.ö Pearson's memoir is written in street dialect, which might appeal to some readers but offend others. Pearson offers an abundance of unsettling insights into the mind of a young girl who is surrounded by few opportunities beyond the lucrative drug trade. She is frank about her attraction to women. One of the most genuine parts of the book is when Pearson describes her horror at the movie, Boys Don't Cry. As numb to violence as she seems, Pearson was shocked by the way society treats "a girl who feels like a boy." Although Pearson's story may be too gritty for a mainstream teen audience, it should be well appreciated by urban fiction readers and fans of The Wire. Reviewer: Diane ColsonLibrary Journal
Pearson, an actress in the TV drama The Wire, was born a crack baby in Baltimore and raised in a foster home. Here, with collaborator Ritz, she chronicles living on the streets, dealing drugs, and ending up in prison for killing a woman in self-defense. (Xpress Reviews, 10/21/07)
—Ann Burns