New York: Penguin, (2007.). SIGNED first edition - SIGNED on the title page. Novel issued as a paperback original by this award-winning poet and writer. From the back cover: "For Black, a mural artist in East L.A., his city's tumbledown landscape is his canvas. Residing in a ramshackle apartment above The Ugly Store, he lives for his art and obsesses over Sweet Girl, the transsexual stripper who serves as his muse. As Black navigates life alongside the Los Angeles River, 'iridescent in its concrete sleeve,' he enlists his friends - Iggy, the beautiful tattoo artist who has beguiled Hollywood's elite, and Bomboy, a wealthy Rwandan butcher - as he confronts his past and struggles to find his place in the world." Cover praise from Walter Mosley and Russell Banks. 291 pp.