John W. Fountain grew up on some of the meanest streets in Chicago, where drugs, crime, decay, and broken homes consigned so many black children to a life of despair and self-destruction. A father at seventeen, a college dropout at nineteen, a welfare case soon after, Fountain was on the verge of giving up all hope. One thing saved him,his faith, his own true vine. True Vine is John Fountain's remarkable story,of his childhood in a neighbourhood heading south of his strong-willed grandparents, who founded a church (called True Vine) that sought to bring the word of God to their neighbours of his mother, herself a teenage parent, whose truncated dreams help nurture bigger dreams in him of his friends and cousins, whose youthful exuberance was extinguished by the burdens they faced and of his religious awakening that gave him the determination to rebuild his life. Today John Fountain is an award-winning reporter for The New York Times , based in his hometown. His return to Chicago marks how his story has come full circle, this time in triumph. True Vine is an inspiring, moving, gripping story of one man's American dream,a dream that all of us can share.
- ISBN10 1586482858
- ISBN13 9781586482855
- Publish Date 16 February 2005 (first published 4 June 2003)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 5 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US
- Imprint PublicAffairs,U.S.
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 352
- Language English