| Valerie Steiker
Senior editor  Photograph by Jerry Schatzberg / Trunk Archive Reading Al Pacino’s forthcoming memoir, “Sonny Boy,” I was struck by the sense of immediacy on the page. For fans of his acting work, there is plenty of interesting, behind-the-scenes material about his iconic roles. But, in deciding what to excerpt, I was drawn to his early memories of childhood and coming of age, which tell the story of how an artist became himself. He gives a candid and moving account of growing up in the South Bronx in the nineteen-forties and fifties. We see how close he was to his Italian family and to a tight-knit circle of friends—including his best friends Cliffy, Bruce, and Petey—whose games, adventures, and narrow escapes were shaped by the surrounding streets and by the era. The sentences are full of humor and life. “A string bean thrown from twenty feet away could really sting,” he notes at one point. And, at the same time, he doesn’t shy away from some of the more challenging moments he has faced, such as his initial struggles to make a living and the too-early, heartbreaking loss of his mother. His vivid conjuring of a hardscrabble childhood in a highly particular New York neighborhood calls to mind such classic memoirs as Alfred Kazin’s “A Walker in the City” and Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes,” and the portrait of an artist forging his path in a bohemian setting recalls Patti Smith’s “Just Kids.” Who knows, maybe it will inspire a new generation of young actors to practice Shakespeare soliloquies while wandering the streets of New York. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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