First published at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic 30 years ago, Ray Shell’s “powerhouse” (Maya Angelou) of a novel is as timely and relevant today as it was in 1994. It is the story of Cornelius Washington, a young upper-middle-class Black man blessed with burning talent and ambition, who enjoys experimenting with drugs—a dangerous pastime that gradually becomes a destructive addiction. Now a middle-aged crackhead, Cornelius ponders his life and the choices that have led him here. Resonant and haunting, illuminating and heartbreaking, it paints a portait of being Black in America, and the ways in which marginalized communities are targeted and ignored, left to suffer the consequences of policies made by powerful people ignorant and uncaring of their lives. It is a novel that transcends time, offering a glimpse of the past that is present in our lives today.