In the Saint Louis housing projects of the 1940s and 1950s, Wilton Latso is known as a lot of things, but nobody would dare call him a hypocrite. A tough guy with a heart of gold, he may have issues controlling his Irish temper, but he's never broken a promise or turned his back on a friend-even while maintaining the fast-driving and hard-drinking lifestyle of his young adulthood.
And with a wife and four kids by the age of twenty-one and five by age twenty-four, he's constantly struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads any way he can.
But when he isn't burying himself in his work or hanging out with his street gang friends, he's struggling with the conservative, evangelical Christian values he was brought up with-views he previously respected but that his caring nature has forced him to look at with a skeptical eye.
Hypocrites in His Midst is based on the true story of a juvenile delinquent raised in a neighborhood fraught with violence and poverty and how he came to be a business owner, a voice for the independent working class, and an all-around nice guy.
About the Author: Donnell Wilson was born in Senath, Missouri, and grew up in an inner-city neighborhood in Saint Louis during the 1940s and 1950s.
Raised by emotionally distant, evangelical Christian parents, he spent his teenage and young adult years in a flurry of violence-witnessing murders, suicides, and rapes. He married his first wife at seventeen and had four children by the age of twenty-one.
Eventually, Wilson became a successful tradesman and business owner who has always lived a fast-paced life. He has been writing ever since taking his first writer's course in his midtwenties and also enjoys boating and fishing.
He currently lives in Florida with his wife, Mary, and is working on two fictional novels.
