As a Seattle eighth-grader in the 80s, Doug Merlino and a handful of other privileged white boys at Lakeside Middle School joined an integrated basketball squad with Central Area kids, coached by an African-American and organized by a wealthy, well-meaning Lakeside parent. As recounted in The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White (Bloomsbury, $26), Merlino left Lakeside (and basketball) after ninth grade and lost touch with teammates both black and white. Then, in a shock that would later cause him to start researching the book, Merlino read in 1991 that ex-teammate Tyrell Johnson had been murdered and dismembered near Rainier Beach. Part of The Hustle investigates that crime, but Merlino’s sociological curiosity is what became of all his former teammates, for better and worsesomething like the documentary 7 Up. Today, the black players grown into parents must struggle with what Merlino, now living in New York, calls a choice between racial solidarity and the potential for class mobility. BRIAN MILLER
Fri., April 1, 7 p.m., 2011
