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Press
Alex Tyson used to be a city gang member; now he’s an author.
Fifteen years ago, the only bookstores Alex Tyson saw were the ones he drove past on his way to sell narcotics.
The life of a gang leader didn’t lend itself much to reading good books or noticing such things as plot structure and character development.
Instead, it was a life of constant violence and rampant self-destruction - leading to several arrests and two stints in prison, in Tyson’s case.
Come Friday, though, Tyson completes a long , personal transformation. He’ll preside over his first book signing as a published novelist.
"This is all new to me," Tyson, 36, says with no small degree of humility. "But I’ll tell you. I can sleep at night now."
His book is "Family Affair," Milligan Books, $14.95, a story of love and struggle set in the fictitious Abraham Lincoln housing project in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980’s.
Tyson says his firsthand knowledge of life in the New Haven projects informs his writing throughout the book. Tyson was a leader of the Island Brothers drug gang in the city in the late 1980’s and early ’90s.
"If you can survive ducking the cops, dealing with guys who are beefing, and hold your spot on the street, then sitting in a room writing is a breeze," he says.
Tyson was born in North Carolina but grew up in New Haven, living with his mother in the Quinnipiac Terrace housing complex.
Education was not a priority for him. He was thrown out of several schools before graduating from Wilbur Cross in 1986. Soon after that , he embraced the drug trade and local gang culture.
His crew, the Island Brothers, bought cheap narcotics in New York and resold them for a profit in New Haven. He often pulled in tens of thousands of dollars a week.
"I just wanted money," he explains, "The Jungle Boys, KSI, we used to fight with all of them. Our serious rivals were the Church Street South and KSI.
"It was dangerous enough that my mother had to move out of the projects and I was living from motel to motel, me and my boys," he adds. "Mom took my keys away. She said,"When you give this up, you're welcome to live with me."
It wasn’t until after he’d spent seven months in jail in 1992 that Tyson sought a different way of life. In the meantime, police crackdowns on drug activity had greatly reduced the gang presence throughout New Haven.
Tyson looked for a job. It wasn’t easy because of his criminal record. He finally got work at the Hospital of St. Raphael.
He also started tinkering with writing - inspired by the movie, "Straight Out of Brooklyn," about a family living in the projects in New York City.
Tyson figured his own experiences were as compelling as any Hollywood film. So he wrote a few things and sent them periodically to an uncle in california, who dabbled in acting and writing.
Tyson also settled down. He’s now married and a father of three children. He holds down two jobs, as a garage attendant at the hospital and also working with autistic clients at Opportunity House in Hamden.
He spent two years writing "Family Affair."