I never read anything like it.Pharr's talent for writing dialogue is truly amazing.When his characters speak you can "hear" them in your head.You can feel Sid Bailey's heightening desperation and see his squalid surroundings.I had to read this book slowly so I could savor each and every page.Then you wonder if it's fiction or cleverly disguised truth?

Pharr's S.R.O. is one of the best black authored books I've read. Though it is 544 pages, the book is page-turner--I couldn't put it down!

This novel tells the story of an alcoholic "square" New York waiter who moves into a Harlem Welfare Hotel and the other residents (junkies, alcoholics, pimps, etc.) who influence him. The reader watches his downfall, vividly described throughout the book.

The character development is amazingly believable and the whole story is just great: a must-read!

This is an odd story. If you took the surrealistic aspects of Chester Himes's Blindman With a Pistol and upped them you'd get some notion of what's in store here. The book is rough -- frankly, about another draft away from completion -- but there's a lot of good stuff bopping around inside. Recommended for fans of this sort of hardboiled fiction.