S. R. O.

This powerful and heavily autobiographical novel chronicles the disconcerting initiation of college-educated waiter and writer Sid Bailey into the teeming life of the Logan, a Harlem welfare hotel. Bailey gradually sheds his straight ways as he becomes adept in the ways of the motley crew of addicts, pushers, prostitutes, winos, and unclassifiable misfits who live there - learning much about himself and the life of Harlem's streets.