This novel should be compusory reading in every school. Maybe I am biased. Maybe it's because I can remember New York City in 1993 and the vibe in the air back then that this was indeed the beginning of the end.
Although the book is set decades into the future, Womack could not have anticipated how fast events would occur nor how the apocalyptic urban chaos he describes would be outdone by reality - within eight years. Still, it's prescient, no doubt, and the teenage Lola, as the antithetical Anne Frank diarist, is an engaging credible narrator. Her language and syntax dissolves into the characters and landscape of broken America. It's a cautionary tale and a prophetic warning which I inhaled in a day; you cannot stop and start this book -it thrusts you into its revolution. Too bad it was a cult book at a time when it should have been a best-seller.