By “entrenching” himself with them, Abramovich allows his readers to take a closer look at the Rats as individuals, and realize, as Abramovich realizes, that they are not so dissimilar to you or I. On the grimy streets of Oakland, the Rats, as a group, a makeshift family of miscreants, fit right in, with their beat up motorcycles, hooligan antics, and their taste for bloodshed. The theme that ties these elements together is that of violence, the ever present shadow side of individuals, and society as a whole. While sharing gritty, yet endearing vignettes about the quirky members of the East Bay Rats Motorcycle Club, Abramovich weaves Oakland history into his journey to better know his childhood bully and club’s president, Trevor. I sat down with it, intending to skim through the first few pages last Sunday morning, and didn’t get up again until the sun had set and I’d read the last page.

It comes as no surprise that I was drawn to this book. As an adult, I have found myself deeply entrenched within my local motorcycle community. I grew up in Oakland, and started hearing whispers of a motorcycle gang called the Rats when I was 6 years old.

Bullies is at once a vivid, visceral narrative of an unusual friendship and an incisive portrait of a beautiful, terrible city. But dangerous, dysfunctional Oakland was also becoming one of America's most rapidly gentrifying cities, and the questions Abramovich had arrived with were thrown into brutal relief: How do we live with the burden of violence? How do we overcome it? Do we overcome it?Īs Trevor, the Rats, and the city they live in careen between crises and moments of renaissance, Abramovich explores issues of friendship, family, history, and destiny - and looks at what happens when those things fail. In 2010, Abramovich moved to California to immerse himself in Latham's world - one of fight clubs, booze-filled nights, and beat-downs on the city's streets. Decades later, when they met again, Abramovich was a writer and Latham had become President of the East Bay Rats, a motorcycle club in Oakland. Once upon a time, Alex Abramovich and Trevor Latham were mortal enemies: miniature outlaws in a Long Island elementary school, perpetually at each other's throats. The powerful account of one writer's unlikely friendship with his childhood bully, now the president of a motorcycle club in one of America's most dangerous cities.

Bullies by Alex Abramovich