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The Arts: David Simon, on tour to promote two of the non-fiction books about the mean streets of Baltimore that formed the basis for 'The Wire', is surprised to find how resonant that bleak view is in cities from Glasgow to Belfast, writes DAVIN O'DWYER.
BALTIMORE, it is fair to say, was always one of those slightly anonymous American cities on the eastern seaboard that you’d struggle to pick out of a line-up. However, in the wake of the epic HBO TV series The Wire– widely hailed as the greatest television series ever – Baltimore has developed a rather unenviable reputation for drugs, corruption, murder, urban decay and drunken police parties. Furthermore, the man responsible for this characterisation, former Baltimore Sunreporter-turned-TV writer and producer David Simon, has spent much of the past two weeks diligently travelling around the UK and Ireland doing publicity for two recently reprinted works of non-fiction narrative journalism that also paint a picture of death and dereliction, Maryland style. But while it might seem that Simon is determined to ruin Baltimore’s image, in truth the two books, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streetsand The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighbourhood, and indeed The Wire, are born of an intense love for the city, and a determination to lift the veil on the problems that afflict it.
