Ron Suskind won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1995 for his stories on Cedric Jennings, a talented black teenager struggling to succeed in one of the worst public high schools in Washington, D.C. Suskind has expanded those features into a full-length nonfiction narrative, following Jennings beyond his high-school graduation to Brown University, and in the tradition of Leon Dash's Rosa Lee and Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here, delivers a compelling story on the struggles of inner-city life in modern America. While it appears to have a happy ending (with Jennings earning a B average in his sophomore year), A Hope in the Unseen is not without a few caveats (at times, Jennings feels profoundly alienated from his white peers). Trite as it may sound to say, this book teaches a lesson about the virtue of perseverance, and it's definitely worth reading.


From School Library Journal
YA-Cedric Jennings is the illegitimate son of an off-and-on drug dealer/ex-con and a hardworking, badly paid mother; it is her single-minded vision to have the boy escape the mean ghetto streets unscathed. Cedric has listened to her and is, as the book opens, an A student at a run-down, dispirited Washington, DC, high school, where he treads a thin line between being tagged a nerd and being beaten by gang leaders. Suskind, a Wall Street Journal reporter, follows the African-American youth through his last two years of high school and freshman year at Brown University. Inspirational sermons at a Pentecostal church, guidance from his mother, a love of black music and singing, and a refuge in the logic of math combine with the young man's determination and faith in the future to keep him focused on his goal of a topflight college education. Despite many low moments and setbacks, Jennings's story is one of triumph within both cultures, black and white, which together and separately put tremendous obstacles in his path out of the inner city. It is a privilege and an inspiration for readers to accompany Cedric on part of his long, difficult journey to maturity. His journey continues at this moment, since he is now a senior at Brown this fall. YAs of any background will be introduced to new worlds here.Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
An offshoot of Suskind's Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal articles on students at a crime-ridden Washington, DC, high school, this chronicles the journey of one of those students?Cedric Jennings?out of the ghetto through his first year at Brown. With mesmerizing detail, Suskind weaves Cedric's story: his illegitimacy, his fiercely protective mother, the black Pentecostal church that imbues him with a trust in God, the taunts and threats he suffers at Ballou High because he is a model student, the strangeness he feels at Brown, both culturally and socially, his academic unpreparedness, despite being the best at Ballou, and his survival at Brown against the odds. Suskind uses his reporter's skills brilliantly, portraying Cedric's outer and inner life and making an eloquent though unstated plea for affirmative action. Essential reading that provides some small hope for our social ills.-?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Boston Globe, Daniel Golden
...an absorbing, painstakingly reported book ... [I]t should be required reading in college education and sociology courses.


From Booklist
How hard is it for a kid from the toughest high school in southeast Washington, D.C., to bootstrap himself into the Ivy League? Very, very, very hard, as Suskind reported in two Pulitzer Prize^-winning Wall Street Journal feature articles. He followed Cedric Jennings through the graffiti-strewn halls of Frank W. Ballou Senior High (where his academic success drew taunts and threats but also support from key teachers) and into an MIT program intended to help minority teens qualify for admission (where Cedric learned that, despite years of hard work, he knew much less than other kids--even other minority kids). A Hope in the Unseen retells that story and adds the next stage of the journey: rejected as "not MIT material," Cedric applies to other top schools, heads to Brown University, and gradually comes to terms with a world quite different from Ballou High. Suskind has spent years talking with Cedric, his working mother, his in-and-out-of-jail father, the clergyman who helped keep Cedric out of trouble, and students (at Ballou, MIT, and Brown) with a range of opinions about academic work and Cedric's single-mindedness. As readers celebrate one young man's singular persistence, they'll wonder how we can help more inner-city kids share Cedric's lifeline of hope. Mary Carroll


From Kirkus Reviews
Suskind, a journalist, tells the story of one African-American youth's rise from poverty-stricken Anacostia, in southeast Washington D.C., to the ivied halls of Brown University. In 1995, Suskind won a Pulitzer Prize for two articles he wrote for the Wall Street Journal on Cedric Jennings, an African- American student at one of the poorest schools in the capital, whose studiousness and ambition earn him a place in MIT's summer program for minority youth. Suskind's book expands on that story, extending it to Cedric's admission to Brown University and first year there. Suskind weaves interviews with Cedric, his family, teachers, and friends into a narrative that shows the challenges facing a ghetto youth bent on academic achievement. Paradoxically, both the inner-city code of youthful male behavior and the teachings of the Pentecostal church Cedric attends with his mother conspire to discourage intellectual distinction. The drama of the story is in the mediations Cedric learns to make between the inherited and the chosen, yet ``unseen,'' parts of his life. Suskind plays to the sense of closure and, in this case, a happy ending the very format of a book (unlike a newspaper article) encourages, but cannot really achieve here, since Cedric's life at college, and beyond, is still in process. By the end of the book, the young man has forgiven his high school nemeses, been reconciled with his absent father, and found social acceptance at Brown. Left hanging is the question of the ultimate success of Cedrics quest, which he is still only beginning. One senses the existence of conflicts unresolved and questions unanswered. This engaging success story leaves behind a troubling aftertaste of personal and social wounds that appear to have been too artfully healed. ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"A beautiful book of a heroic American struggle."
--David Halberstam in USA Today

"[An] extraordinary, formula-shattering book."
--New York Times Book Review

"A story of sheer human grit that should be read by others as example and inspiration."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

"Absolutely gripping.  A sort of suspense novel of the human psyche. . . . It's beyond good, it's really extraordinary."
--Walter Kirn, National Public Radio


Review
"A beautiful book of a heroic American struggle."
--David Halberstam in USA Today

"[An] extraordinary, formula-shattering book."
--New York Times Book Review

"A story of sheer human grit that should be read by others as example and inspiration."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

"Absolutely gripping.  A sort of suspense novel of the human psyche. . . . It's beyond good, it's really extraordinary."
--Walter Kirn, National Public Radio


Book Description
At Ballou Senior High, a crime-infested school in Washington, D.C., honor students have learned to keep their heads down. Like most inner-city kids, they know that any special attention in a place this dangerous can make you a target of violence. But Cedric Jennings will not swallow his pride, and with unwavering support from his mother, he studies and strives as if his life depends on it--and it does. The summer after his junior year, at a program for minorities at MIT, he gets a fleeting glimpse of life outside, a glimpse that turns into a face-on challenge one year later: acceptance into Brown University, an Ivy League school.At Brown, finding himself far behind most of the other freshmen, Cedric must manage a bewildering array of intellectual and social challenges. Cedric had hoped that at college he would finally find a place to fit in, but he discovers he has little in common with either the white students, many of whom come from privileged backgrounds, or the middle-class blacks. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric is left to rely on his faith, his intelligence, and his determination to keep alive his hope in the unseen--a future of acceptance and reward that he struggles, each day, to envision.


From the Publisher
Advance praise for A Hope in the Unseen:"This beautiful, poignant, hopeful book tells the story of an incredible young man and what it's like to grow up in a world that is completely alien to some Americans, but is tragically all too familiar to too many children."
--Marian Wright Edelman, President of The Children's Defense Fund"From the opening scene, A Hope in the Unseen upended all my preconceptions about life in the inner city and the Ivy League. It is by turns funny, poignant, and suspenseful, at the same time inspiring and sobering. [I]t ranks among the best nonfiction books I have read."
--James B. Stewart, author of Den of Thieves and Blood Sport"Ron Suskind takes us on an unforgettable, peculiarly American journey--a journey which exposes the fault lines of race and class, and yet gives one reason for hope."
--Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and The Other Side of the River



From the Inside Flap
At Ballou Senior High, a crime-infested school in Washington, D.C., honor students have learned to keep their heads down. Like most inner-city kids, they know that any special attention in a place this dangerous can make you a target of violence. But Cedric Jennings will not swallow his pride, and with unwavering support from his mother, he studies and strives as if his life depends on it--and it does. The summer after his junior year, at a program for minorities at MIT, he gets a fleeting glimpse of life outside, a glimpse that turns into a face-on challenge one year later: acceptance into Brown University, an Ivy League school.

At Brown, finding himself far behind most of the other freshmen, Cedric must manage a bewildering array of intellectual and social challenges. Cedric had hoped that at college he would finally find a place to fit in, but he discovers he has little in common with either the white students, many of whom come from privileged backgrounds, or the middle-class blacks. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric is left to rely on his faith, his intelligence, and his determination to keep alive his hope in the unseen--a future of acceptance and reward that he struggles, each day, to envision.


From the Back Cover
"A beautiful book of a heroic American struggle."
--David Halberstam in USA Today"[An] extraordinary, formula-shattering book."
--New York Times Book Review"A story of sheer human grit that should be read by others as example and inspiration."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World"Absolutely gripping. A sort of suspense novel of the human psyche. . . . It's beyond good, it's really extraordinary."
--Walter Kirn, National Public Radio


About the Author
Ron Suskind is a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal. In 1995, he won the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for a two-part series about the high-school years of Cedric Jennings. Suskind and his family live in Washington, D.C.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The next morning blooms into a radiant, cloudless day, as it ought to be. Freshmen arrive for orientation, ferried by a grand procession of proud parents.

Barbara, tired from the drive, gets a late start and, before long, the day feels harried. It's nearly noon by the time they get to College Hill, a steep slope on top of which Brown sits like a cloud city above the gritty ethnic enclaves, legendary Italian restaurants, and aging factories of Providence. "I wanted to get this all done early. Now look," she says, sitting in the van near the Brown student union as Cedric, looking at a checklist in his orientation packet, slips out to go get his temporary student ID. "Don't be all day, Lavar," she calls after him, all business, "I gotta get back home."

Cedric has drawn a desirable dorm, Andrews Hall. It's a three-story brick horseshoe on the quieter Pembroke side of campus that was renovated over the summer and now boasts fresh carpeting and new paint. From the Andrews parking lot, they unload the van swiftly, with Cedric helping on this end. While Barbara glances tersely at other parents--mostly white, of course--unloading Lexuses and Range Rovers and Volvo wagons, she notices that Cedric seems to be increasingly relaxed--smiling at some of the other incoming freshmen and offering unsolicited greetings.

"These dorms are nice," Barbara notes over her shoulder to Cedric, who is dragging a trunk full of linens behind her across the second-floor hallway carpet. Remembering Cedric's complaints about last summer's dorms, she adds, "And a lot nicer than MIT, ain't it?"

"Lot nicer," he says, almost shouting. "This place is nothing like MIT."

A small paper square taped to the door of room 216 says "Cedric Lavar Jennings and Robert Burton." Cedric fumbles with the key and opens the heavy wooden door.

"Wow," he says.

"Hmmm, very nice," Barbara confirms.

His roommate, Rob, has already been here, settled in and gone. Barbara moves to the empty bed and starts unpacking while Cedric goes back downstairs for the rest. She carefully places a dozen new pairs of underwear, a dozen new pairs of socks, and six new T-shirts (clothes bought with money she didn't have to spare) onto closet shelves, and she begins a ritual that she figures is being repeated at this moment in hundreds of rooms across the campus: a mother making her child's bed for the last time. It's not like Barbara made his bed back home, she muses, but it doesn't matter. She made a thousand beds before she was twenty, and now she meticulously presses flat a fold of sheet, tucking it tight. Cedric returns, carrying his CDs, and crosses the room to check the unfamiliar titles in Rob's collection as Barbara lays the blanket and smoothes it.

With the van unpacked and their stomachs growling, Barbara decides they should walk to one of the dining halls for lunch. Soon, she and Cedric are strolling the campus, through archways and across neatly edged rectangles of thick grass.

While Barbara is delighted that Cedric, so tightly wound yesterday, is now buoyantly bouncing as he walks, an unwanted self-consciousness is welling up inside her. She'd rather not notice the cars other parents are driving, the clothes they're wearing, and the ease with which they move. She knows, of course, that the typical Brown parents probably went to college and on to some professional status that their offspring, by virtue of this Ivy League acceptance, are now bounding toward. Here, it's a day for her to be proud, but she can't help staring at them--these smiling, polished people--and overhearing their jaunty melody of generational succession: a child's footsteps following their own, steps on a path that leads to prosperity's table and a saved seat right next to Mom and Dad.

Barbara, watching Cedric demolish a ham sandwich at the dining hall, tries to figure out what she brings to this place, where she fits. It's her day, too, she resolves, looking across a dining hall filled with effusive, chatty parents and freshmen, though her song is flat and elemental--an old, familiar harmony, really, about sacrifice and denial and a child venturing where the parent never could.

"Really is a whole 'nother world up here," she says quietly across the table as Cedric reaches for her untouched sandwich, barely noticing that she's there. In that instant, she realizes how afraid she is that she might lose him.

It's almost two o'clock when they head back to the dorm. Near the new, soaring brick medical school, Cedric spots a bumper sticker on a parked car: "Your Honor Student Was Beaten Up By My Kid" it says, a play on the honor student bumper stickers that are especially popular in the inner cities.

"That car must be from D.C.," he jokes, and Barbara puts her arm around him as they laugh.

A tall, thin Caucasian girl with hazel-blue eyes, a row of earrings, and a shaved head strolls by. "Isn't that awful," Barbara murmurs to Cedric after the girl passes. "Must be chemotherapy." He nods sympathetically.

A few blocks ahead, passing a lovely Victorian house just north of Andrews dorm, Barbara admires the wide, circular porch and an apple arbor alongside it. "That fruit could feed a lot of hungry people," she says as they walk the last few feet to the dorm. Inside Cedric's room, they're puttering around when the door opens. It's a smallish white boy with dark hair, a faint Van Dyke beard, and sandals.

"You must be Rob," says Cedric with a wide smile.

"You must be Cedric," he echoes back in a soft, cheery voice.

Barbara nods a hello at him and rises from Cedric's bed. She knows that the time has come. In a moment, she and Cedric go down the elevator and outside and begin walking the last block to the van. She doesn't want to lead and senses that he doesn't either, so their pace slows until they're almost weaving--like they're not going anywhere, really. But as he looks down at his feet, she's able to glimpse the side of his face without him knowing. And Barbara Jennings can't help but hear echoes of her earlier self, holding a baby a little too tight, saying, "I'll save you, and me, too."

At the bumper of the van, he looks up.

"You be good, okay?" she says.

"Yeah . . ."

"Come here," she finally says, holding her arms out wide, and the two fall together as she presses her cheek hard against his.

"Trust in God, let Him guide you," she whispers.

"I will, Ma."

They hug for a good, long time. She's not been a mother to show him much physical affection in these latter years. The situation demanded strength. She had to be a father, too, as best she knew how, and maybe that hardened her touch. So, as they pull apart, she finds that her cheeks are flushed. She shakes it off.

"Okay, now," Barbara says. She reaches into the back seat and gives him a Frito-Lay assortment pack, uneaten from the trip. He nods. She gets into the front seat and waves once, and Cedric begins ambling down the hill toward the dorm.

"Wait!" She spots his deodorant in the space between the seats and yells through the open window. He runs the few feet back to get it.

"All right, 'bye," she says, and he turns, briskly walking back to the dorm as she watches him in the rearview. He doesn't look back.

Barbara is quiet as the van eases into gear and drifts onto the quiet street. She told herself she wouldn't cry, so she tries to occupy her eyes, looking at things she passes by. That Victorian would sure be nice, she thinks to herself, heading past the wraparound porch.

But something's wrong. She snaps to attention. The money!

Next thing, she's back in the dorm parking lot and then running up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The door to room 216 bursts open. "I forgot this," Barbara says, panting, and squeezes three neatly folded twenties into her son's hand. Already, though, the room belongs to Cedric Lavar Jennings, a Brown freshman, and that nice white boy on the other bed. She feels suddenly unsure. Cedric is smiling broadly but like he's looking right through her. "Well, good-bye Lavar," she says simply and slips out. Doesn't hug him this time. She'd think a lot about that later.

It takes a moment for the heavy oak door to swing on its hinge. And when it slams, it's like a thunder clap, leaving her alone with the smell of fresh paint.

FROM THE PUBLISHER