Work in Progress

“In his captivating memoir, Devon turns a childhood marked by poverty, abuse, and survival into something raw, beautiful, and deeply human.”—Mel Robbins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Let Them Theory, host of The Mel Robbins Podcast As a child, Rodriguez wondered why he lived in a single cramped room with his family, where he was beaten often and never felt safe. But despite difficult circumstances, he always believed he was going to be a successful artist. When he was in the ninth grade, his art teacher invited him to ride the New York City subway, with one destination in mind: the development of his craft, by drawing the commuters sitting across from him. A blank page in his sketchbook was something Rodriguez could control in an otherwise chaotic life. In this astonishing memoir, he explains how his art, his grandmother, and his own relentless drive saved him from heart-wrenching circumstances and led him to redefine out-of-fashion realist portraiture as fresh and magical. Rodriguez writes with rhythm, verve, and an artist’s POV, painting a vivid picture of his native Bronx, the tattoos and rooftop graffiti that mesmerized him as a kid, and the teachers who saw his potential and nourished it. Painting regular people in all their complexity is Rodriguez’s gift and his offering to the world, an old-school act that has made him a new-school star. Work in Progress delivers Rodriguez’s most precise and moving portrait yet: of himself.