Third and Indiana is a novel written by Steve Lopez about the experiences of several people connected to 14-year-old Gabriel Santoro, while living in the dangerous gang-controlled streets of the Badlands section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The novel gave notoriety to Third Street and Indiana Avenue, a real-life intersection in the Fairhill area known for the prevalence of drug dealers.Volk, Steve. "." Philadelphia Weekly. May 24, 2006. Retrieved on January 19, 2009.Volk, Steve. "Top 10 Drug Corners ." Philadelphia Weekly. May 2, 2007. Retrieved on January 20, 2009. The first printing had 50,000 copies printed."Third and Indiana." Publishers Weekly. August 29, 1994. Retrieved on November 6, 2012. Published in 1994, it was Lopez's first novel.Keating, Douglas J. "A Drug Corner Goes To Stage Center Aaron Posner's Adaptation Of third And Indiana Opens Tonight." The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 25, 1997. . Retrieved on November 6, 2012.
Plot
Gabriel Santoro, a 14-year-old boy, runs away from home when he learns that people in the drug dealing gang he works for, the Black Caps, suspect him of stealing drug money; he owes $2,000. He hides away in the house occupied by Eddie Passarelli, a man from South Philadelphia who himself owes money to the mafia and whose marriage deteriorates after he leaves his home and his affair is discovered; his girlfriend then proceeds to break up with him. Meanwhile, Ofelia, the mother of Gabriel, searches for him on her bicycle.
Eddie and Gabriel work together to get themselves out of their situations. The head of the Black Caps, Diablo, pursues Gabriel, trying to find him and kill him. In the novel Diablo kills Lalo Camacho, Gabriel's friend, and Father Laetner, an activist priest who works with Ofelia. Gabriel develops a relationship with his girlfriend, Marisol, who helps him. Eddie's acquaintance, Mike Inverso, convinces them to steal the ring of Anthony DeMarco, the deceased mayor, from a funeral home in South Philadelphia as a way of paying their way out of trouble, but the characters have trouble finding a way of generating money from the ring. Thin Jimmy, the mafioso who Eddie owes money to, dies, but Eddie resolves to continue helping Gabriel. Ofelia eventually meets Eddie and learns of how he had sheltered her son, but Gabriel is now away from the two of them when Ofelia and Eddie meet.
Gabriel puts the stolen ring in Diablo's car as a way of framing him. Ralph, Gabriel's friend, tasked by Diablo to kill Gabriel, threatens him but commits suicide instead. As Gabriel runs down a street, Diablo shoots him. The boy runs into the arms of Ofelia. A police officer, Bill Bagno, uses the stolen mayor's ring as a pretext to finally arrest Diablo, something law enforcement had been unable to accomplish. Eddie, with the approval of Bagno, assaults Diablo in retaliation for his shooting of Gabriel. Gabriel is taken to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, but dies of his injuries. Ofelia discovers that Gabriel had painted images of children who died from drug violence on Broad Street, pointing the way to City Hall as a way of indicting city officials of indifference. At the conclusion, Ofelia herself paints Gabriel's image.
Development Steve Lopez arrived in Philadelphia in the mid-1980s. Lopez said that he began considering writing a novel because "what I saw in the neighborhood that I found so shocking and so unlike what I had seen in my years of reporting in other cities. There were just so many compelling images that I would walk away with every time I went into the neighborhood." Lopez said that the novel was, as paraphrased by Douglas J. Keating of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "essentially the story of a parent in search of a child in danger."Keating, Douglas J. "A Drug Corner Goes To Stage Center Aaron Posner's Adaptation Of third And Indiana Opens Tonight." The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 25, 1997. . Retrieved on November 6, 2012. Lopez said that his book mainly focused on "adult relationships".
Characters Gabriel Santoro - Gabriel, the protagonist, is a 14-year old boy who runs away from home and deals drugs on the street. Ultimately Gabriel is good at heart, and hopes to pull away from a life of drugs and violence. In the novel Gabriel is half-Latino, half-European White. His mother, Ofelia, is half-Dominican and half-Canadian.Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 6. "Ofelia's father was Dominican and her mother Canadian, but Ofelia grew up neither." His father, Ruben, was Cuban and Italian.Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 43. "He was tall and handsome and strong, a halfbreed like herself, Cuban and Italian,[...]"Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 45. "And to think she'd wasted two years of her life on Arthur when Ruben the Cuban was eligible[...]" In the play Gabriel was portrayed by Gueshill Gilman Wharwood, an African-American actor, and a fourth year student (senior) at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). Carl Sessions Stepp, the senior editor of the American Journalism Review, wrote in a 1994 review that "Gabriel is a compelling and heartbreaking character, a talented artist abandoned by his father and overwhelmed by circumstances, yet prodigiously mature in certain ways."Stepp, Carl Sessions. "A Couple of Winning Novels By Journalists ." American Journalism Review. December 1994. Retrieved on February 1, 2013. Brian O'Neill of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that he as a reviewer cared about Gabriel, the character.O'Neill, Brian. "Philly Novel of the Streets Compelling." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at Google News. Thursday November 17, 1994. D-3. Retrieved on July 28, 2009. Ben Yagoda of The New York Times said that Gabriel "is depicted as honorable, steadfast and true -- and a prodigiously talented artist to boot." Yagoda asked "[w]hy would such a boy be willing to pocket the grocery money of teen-age mothers in exchange for crack?" Bob Nocek of Times Leader said that Wharwood "handled dutifully" making Gabriel a sympathetic character.Nocek, Bob. "HOPE, VIOLENCE MEET AT `THIRD AND INDIANA'." (Archive) Times Leader. Wednesday April 9, 1997. p. 2C. Retrieved on May 21, 2013. "The task of making Gabriel sympathetic is handled dutifully by Gueshill Gilman Wharwood, a senior at the Creative and Performing Arts High[...]" Ofelia Santoro - Ofelia, Gabriel's mother, frantically looks for Gabriel. She is 40 years old.Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 46. "Not bad, she thought. For forty she didn't look bad." In the novel Ofelia is half-Latina, half-European White, as her father was Dominican and her mother was Canadian. In the play she was portrayed by Joilet Harris, an African-American actress. Judith Wynne, a Somerville, Massachusetts writer who made a review of the book for The Baltimore Sun, said that the "depressed" Ofelia "is a handsome, urban earth mother who has psychic premonitions about Gabriel that she paints on her kitchen wall" and that "Lopez imbues her scenes with the melancholy, supernatural-tinged lyricism of a Toni Morrison novel."Wynne, Judith. "Perilous streets portrayed in gritty Philadelphia story." The Baltimore Sun. October 9, 1994. Retrieved on November 6, 2012. Eddie "Joe Pass" Passarelli - A South Philadelphia Italian American, 38-year-old Eddie loses his girlfriend, leaves a crumbling marriage, and finds that he has to pay a mobster named Thin Jimmy $10,000 U.S. dollars ($ according to inflation) since the truck, driven by Eddie, had a fire and burnt. Eddie is nicknamed "Joe Pass" as a reference to the musician Joe Pass.Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 12. He suddenly moves out of his Roxborough house and moves into his mother's rental apartment in Kensington.Lopez, Steve. 1994. Third and Indiana. 15. "Sarah was five-eleven, red-haired, and green-eyed, and never did her nails," ... "He liked that she was Jewish because it took him farther from where he came from." ... "Sarah was forty-three" Eddie becomes a father figure to Gabriel. At one point Eddie hears himself being compared to President of the United States Bill Clinton. The novel states that he "didn't necessarily take as a compliment, considering how gray and fat-faced the president was." Wynne said that the "manic" Eddie "seems to have dropped in from one of Elmore Leonard's low-life thrillers." O'Neill stated that Eddie becomes a "raging bull" at the end of the book. Paul L. Nolan played Eddie in the stage adaptation.Zinman, Toby. "Critical Mass Third and Indiana ." Philadelphia City Paper. April 3–10, 1997. Michael McCauley, the original actor for Eddie, dropped out of the production, and Nolan, originally cast as Lieutenant Bagno, replaced McCauley. Fried, Daisy. "Third Act From Oprah to Lopez to the streets of North Philly — the Arden Theatre Company's long journey to Third & Indiana. " Philadelphia City Paper. March 20–27, 1997. Retrieved on January 19, 2009. Bob Nocek, in The Times Leader, stated that "The foolishness of Passarelli’s troubles [...] are a welcome break from" Gabriel's plot points. Father Laetner - A Roman Catholic priest from Pittsburg, California, Laetner is shocked by the neighborhood and helps Ofelia in her quest to find her son. O'Neill states that Laetner is "two dimensional" and that Lopez made Laetner "incongruously agnostic" since Laetner "acts heroically." O'Neill added that Laetner did not seem to have awareness of "Christ's predilection for the poor, the basis for the liberation theology movement within the Catholic Church." O'Neill said "There are Hallmark cards that go deeper than this guy. (Has any American novelist since Willa Cather given us a believable priest?)" Scott Greer played Laetner in the stage adaptation. Posner said that he considered making the Laetner character African-American or Latino in order to "find an appropriate racial balance within the cast." Posner said that he opted to retain Laetner as a white character because "Laetner behaves quite naively, which began to seem less than credible for an African American or Latino. Not that there aren't plenty of naive African Americans and Latinos, but Laetner's naive in that particular well-meaning white liberal way. For example, I could see myself behaving as Laetner does." Diablo - Diablo, an ugly drug kingpin, keeps Gabriel and the other gang members of the "Black Caps" under his thumb. O'Neill described Diablo as a "cardboard character straight from a Steven Seagal movie." Elvis O. Nolasco played Diablo in the stage adaptation. Marisol - Gabriel's girlfriend, Marisol attends night school and works at a restaurant during the day. In the play, Michelle Seabreeze, a senior at CAPA at the time, played Marisol. Lalo Camacho - Lalo, one of Gabriel's close friends, is in the Black Caps. Diablo fatally beats him. In the play, Ito Robles played Lalo. Ralph - Ralph, one of Gabriel's close friends, is in the Black Caps. Diablo asks him to kill Gabriel, and Ralph confronts Gabriel before committing suicide. On the stage Ralph was played by Ramon Aponte, a CAPA senior at the time. Mike Inverso - Inverso is the shady friend of Eddie who constantly insults Eddie. He creates the plan of stealing the mayor's ring in order to pay off Thin Jimmy and Diablo. John Lumia played Mike in the stage version. Daisy Fried of Philadelphia City Paper described Inverso as "bad-egg". Bill Bagno - Bagno is a police officer and a Vietnam War veteran. H. Michael Walls played Bagno in the stage version. Originally Paul Nolan was cast as Bagno, but he was recast as Eddie. Anthony Faggioli - The owner of the Faggioli Funeral Home, he helps Gabriel and Eddie steal the mayor's ring. Mayor DeMarco - The corrupt mayor who dies in the course of the novel. O'Neill compares DeMarco to Frank Rizzo.