[Down These Mean Streets] was a document about a special condition, a special place, a special man. It was dense with the specificity of his world, of his head, of the forces that played on them both, and it was told in a quasi-poetic argot that suited the material, added to the density….

Thomas has now, in the age of Attica, resurrected the essence of [a 70-page segment of Down These Mean Streets], retitled it Seven Long Times and told the story all over again….

Now it is a dull echo. A second pot of tea made from the same teabag; but he doesn't seem to see that. He writes the new book as if the first one never existed. Worse, he relies on sentiment instead of specific thought, on generalizations instead of the fine detail that he lavished on the first work….

Thomas does have some good...