America’s middle class is vanishing before our very eyes. No one knows this better than Thomas J. Bowes. As a native of a poor Philadelphia neighborhood, he bore witness to—and participated in—acts of drug-inspired foolishness, vandalism, violence, and despair that could only have been borne of his degrading middle-class environment. After enduring a childhood surrounded by drugs, crime and economic hardship, Bowes soon found his way into Philadelphia’s criminal underworld. He went on to experience escalating levels of crime and personal drug abuse that would almost lead to his demise.
Middle-Class America: Downward Spiral into Extinction takes you on a journey into—and out of—Philadelphia’s drug-addled middle-class society. A story of drugs, crime, humor, love, despair and redemption, Middle-Class America illustrates, sometimes vulgarly and always candidly, the life of a boy who sought nothing more than escape the blue-collar circumstances into which life had thrust him. It is an amusing and captivating autobiographical account of the challenges and opportunities faced by America’s endangered middle class.
