Harlem native Michael A. Gonzales is a cultural critic, short story scribe and essayist who has written for The Paris Review, The Village Voice, Wax Poetics, The Wire UK, Maggot Brain and Pitchfork. His fiction has appeared in Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression edited by S.A. Cosby, Taint Taint Taint, Dead-End Jobs: A Hit Man Anthology edited by Andrew J. Rausch, Black Pulp edited by Gary Phillips and The Root. Upcoming stories will appear in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Get Up Offa That Thing: Crime Fiction Inspired by James Brown edited by Gary Phillips, Killens Review of Arts & Letters and Obsidian Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.
A 1965 novel about racial injustice and police brutality in the Deep South was hailed by critics and made into a major movie. The story would haunt its author until the bitter end.