Hundreds of thousands of readers came to know Luis J. RodrÍguez through his fearless classic, <I>Always Running, </i>which chronicled his early life as a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles. The long awaited follow-up, <I>It Calls You Back, </i>is the equally harrowing story of RodrÍguez starting over, at age eighteen, after leaving gang life—the only life he really knew. <P><I>It Calls You Back </i>opens with RodrÍguez's final stint in jail as a teenager and follows his struggle to kick heroin, renounce his former life, and search for meaningful work. He describes with heartbreaking honesty his challenges as a father and his difficulty leaving his rages and addictions completely behind. Even as he breaks with “la vida loca” and begins to discover success as a writer and an activist, RodrÍguez finds that his past—the crimes, the drugs, the things he'd seen and done—has a way of calling him back. <P>When his oldest son is sent to prison for attempted murder, RodrÍguez is forced to confront his shortcomings as a father and to acknowledge how and why his own history is repeating itself, right before his eyes. <P>Deeply insightful and beautifully written, <I>It Calls You Back </i>is an odyssey through love, addiction, revolutions, and healing.