Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went  on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House  Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in  prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation. In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran  a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a  Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about  four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a  spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for  two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was  named Wes Moore. Wes just couldnt shake off the unsettling  coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in  the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the  manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other  Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the  possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that  had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?That  letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for  several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered  thatthe other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up  in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were  fatherless; theyd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and  both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young  lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their  choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.