The Wire: Truth Be Told

A recently published book, The Wire: Truth Be Told, offers a terrific overview of television's crowning achievement. HBO had already revolutionized television with The Sopranos (1999-2007), a pitch-black comedy that invited a New Jersey organized crime family to your Thanksgiving dinner. On June 2, 2002, a new drama was added to HBO's Sunday night lineup. In what must be considered one of the great cold openings in TV history, The Wire began with Detective Jimmy McNulty questioning a possible witness to a homicide, that of a neighborhood regular named Snot Boogie. The detective and the witness sit side by side on a Baltimore street corner, discussing the victim's ignominious demise. The homicide being discussed in this opening sequence has no relation to the show's subsequent - and labyrinthine - investigations, but serves as an incredibly concise preview of the show's ambition: "The Law" and "The Street" working side by side and at cross-purposes.

The show's executive producer, David Simon, brought all his past work to bear on this hugely ambitious project. Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999) was a network television adaptation of Simon's award-winning book, a study of a year spent with the Baltimore Police Department's homicide unit. In 1997 Simon authored a second book, this time in collaboration with former Baltimore police officer Ed Burns. This book was the basis for the HBO mini-series, The Corner (2000). Both of these series can be seen as precursors to The Wire.

Over the course of five seasons, The Wire dealt seriously and thoughtfully with the plight of urban police, the drug trade, the declining blue-collar workforce, the school system, corruption in local and state politics, and finally the media's failure to accurately portray these conditions. And yet, The Wire is not in any way polemical. These weighty topics and themes are examined with novelistic insight into the lives of individual characters. To this end, Simon drafted novelists Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), George Pelecanos (The D.C. Quartet), and Richard Price (Clockers, Freedomland). These three celebrated writers helped chart the course of what is now almost unanimously cited as one of the greatest television programs of all time.

The Wire: Truth Be Told is a goldmine for fans of the show. It features complete episode breakdowns, in-depth profiles of every major character in the series, hundreds of photographs, essays, and interviews with various actors, writers and producers. I particularly enjoyed Laura Lippman's essay "The Women of The Wire (No, Seriously)". If this isn't enough to sate your thirst, I highly recommend Vice Magazine's insightful 2009 interview with David Simon.

Follow the jump for links to the Library catalog.

DVDs:

The Wire: The Complete First Season
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The Wire: The Complete Second Season
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The Wire: The Complete Third Season
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The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season
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The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season
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Books:

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets - David Simon
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The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood - David Simon and Edward Burns
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Grace After Midnight: A Memoir - Felicia Pearson
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The Wire: Truth Be Told - Rafael Alvarez
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Music:

The Wire: "...and all the pieces matter"
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