Empty Heads, Full Bottles

Those Were the Days, or Maybe NotWalter Serpa, the narrator of Empty Heads, Full Bottles, grew up in California during the 1950s and 1960s. The often nostalgic or romanticized view of this era as providing postwar prosperity, stable nuclear families, and safe, welcoming neighborhoods represented merely a myth for some people coming of age. Though these years did, in many ways, mark simpler times for Walter, they were also shadowed by abuse, addiction, and the looming threat of poverty. Walt goes from playing with his friends in the street to running with a gang of ruthless, unpredictable, and violent criminals whose attraction to money, drugs, and weapons results in all manner of mayhem.
Among the cast of ragtag renegades, there's handsome Mack, sadistic Cole, contemplative Cousin Mel, and many others. At the precipice of self-destruction, the main character has a choice: either take accountability and turn his life around or hurl himself into the void.