Concrete Dreamland

An award-winning artist who was featured in Humans of New York, conveys his life experience in a bold collection of essays addressing family trauma, addiction, poverty—and how a passion to create art moved him beyond his struggles.
 
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1963, Patrick grew up in the midst of some of the most turbulent and culturally impactful periods of NYC's history. Often neglected as a child by his parents—a father who struggled with alcohol addiction and an overworked mother who struggled to make ends meet—he learned to fend for himself. Now a renowned visual artist, musician, actor and writer, Dougher brings to the page his memories, his struggles, personal revelations, and a life intimately tied to the realities of growing up Black and disenfranchised on the streets of one of the most remarkable cities in the world.
 
Concrete Dreamland is tragic and triumphant, gritty and hard, poetic and outrageously funny. Told in Dougher's brutally raw and courageously honest voice, these stories act as snapshots of a life lived in extremes; from gangsters to God, street style to sexuality, fights and broken bones, to recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism. He tells of his adventures as a pre-hip hop “hard rock' and an original Black punk rocker surviving during the dangerous days of the crack and AIDS epidemic in NYC, while also sharing tales of racism, homelessness, and his many brushes with fame and death.
 
Audacious, unique, and sometimes surprising, Concrete Dreamland is an unmatched collection offering stories from a life filled with laughter and tears that came together to create an artist.