Lions and Legends

"The book is so good. I couldn't stop crying," Toya Wright, New York Times Bestselling Author of Priceless Inspirations In one of the most important urban memoirs since Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler, Walter Johnson takes us to the jazzy but gritty city streets of New Orleans where he tells a hauntingly, powerful narrative of growing up poor, black and with a mother on crack. By the age of twelve, Walter is left to raise his three brothers, Rudy, Josh and Casey while two sisters, Toya and Anisha are taken in by extended family members. Toya gets pregnant at fifteen and marries famed rapper, Lil Wayne, and he and Walter have a childhood altercation over their budding romance, leaving Walter with much regret as he tries to climb and claw his way out of poverty as a socially-conscious rapper. At the age of sixteen, Walter is sentenced to ten years in prison for armed robbery while his brothers and sisters are left to fend for themselves as their mother's drug addiction spirals out-of-control. Years later, Rudy and Josh are murdered in a double homicide, leaving Walter devastated and searching for answers, forgiveness, and redemption. Walter moves easily from prison cells to the home of the rich and famous, Tiny and T.I. where he becomes an overnight sensation on the BET Reality Show, Tiny and Toya. While chronicling his rise and fall as a reality star, Walter and Toya confront their mom's drug problems and he grapples with a family secret that almost destroys him. But Walter is a man who wants a better life and the family he never had, so he marries his childhood crush, LaTosha, and becomes a step father to her two daughters and a first time parent to his only child, Pai'Chence who Walter dreamed of in prison when he was at his lowest point. The only problem with their happy union is that his new wife and Toya were once childhood friends who have long since gone their separate ways, creating conflict between Walter and Toya. Told in the unflinching voice of a man in search of peace, respect and love in troubling times, Walter's Lions and Legends will be the talk of the town for its brutal honesty and thought-provoking insight on the state and crisis of young black men in urban America as well as his determination to rise up from beyond prison walls in the face of unimaginable tragedies.