Tattoos on the Heart

Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, gathers parables drawn from some twenty years of work with the city's gangs. As pastor in the neighborhood with the heaviest concentration of gang violence in Los Angeles, Boyle set up the organization to offer jobs, training and support, and it has served members of more than half the gangs in the city. Arranged by theme, the essays dwell on kinship, unconditional love and the worth of every life. Among the people Boyle writes about are Cesar, a huge tattooed man shopping at JCPenney just out of prison, ten-year-old Lula and Pedro. The stories grow out of his Christian faith but are meant for anyone trying to be good.

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