Happy birthday Jesús

"Not since Richard Wright's Native Son has there been such a scathing indictment in fiction of the institutional racism propagated and supported by white America, or a more horrifying account of the travails faced by minority members unfortunate enough to be born into poverty. Jesus Olivas is a human monstrosity, a Mexican boy raised in Northern California whose crimes include brutally raping a prostitute and maiming a priest. First-novelist and criminal lawyer Ruiz brackets Jesus's tortured upbringing in the Fresno ghettos and the abuse he suffers at the hands of his fanatic Catholic mothe...