The Aorta

Falling in love with Detroit, the beginning

When I met kids my own age in Detroit— and I met hundreds, selling The Red Tide in front of every public high school in the unified school district— I’d tell them, “I just dropped out of school and moved out here from California.”

Their mouths dropped. “You’ve got it all backwards!” they’d say. “Are you crazy?”

I had their attention. “You have something …