Is Urban Fiction really based on reality

The truth about Urban Fiction

Bronx, NY August 12, 2005 ― Much of today's Urban Fiction is not based on the realities of the street. Many readers of the Genre would disagree. They feel that these books reflect what's going on in the hood. Not so says one man.

A lot of Urban Fiction is actually fantasy," So says Michael Alan Townsend, the author of Black Power: Strategies for achieving and utilizing power in America." (ISBN 0-9753205-0-5).

This Urban Non-Fiction title has been the best selling book in Bronx Village Publishers' catalogue.

To prove his point, Townsend points out a scene from a popular urban title. In this book, a crack addict sells her child to a drug dealer. This has no bearing on reality. Half the drug dealers I've known, and I've known a few, don't even want to take care of their own kids much less buy some from a crack head."

Townsend claims some of these books are so unrealistic that they are warping the reasoning skills of some young readers.

Many of the people who read these books are young readers. These kids will read these books and think that a lot of this stuff can and does happen," Townsend says. I deal with lot of street vendors pushing my book, so I get to meet many Urban Fiction readers. When I meet someone who has read one of the more unrealistic books, I ask what they think. I get answers like, 'very realistic, this is what's happening on the streets, etc'."

But when Townsend asks questions like, How many drug dealers do you know of that will buy some one's kid?" He claims to get similar responses. First they just stare, and then they look at me and say something like, 'Stuff like that doesn't really happen in the hood.' But before I questioned them they said the book was realistic. Its good that they are reading but reading should strengthen the mind not weaken it."

Black Power: Strategies for achieving and utilizing power in America." (ISBN 0-9753205-0-5) is available on amazon.com and of course on the streets of New York.

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