"Evicted" by Matthew Desmond made me think. And that's a good thing.
It made me think primarily about people who do not have my means. If I met any of its subjects anywhere, I would probably assess them negatively. That fact haunted me through the whole book, because it is a problem. These people should not be looked down on and are people just like me.
As a Christian, I know that these people are worth just as much as me (See Jesus in Matthew 25:40 for what I believe on that). Desmond writes, "It was easy to go on about helping 'the poor.' Helping a poor person with a name, a face, a history, and many needs, a person whose mistakes and lapses of judgment you have recorded - that was a more trying matter." (127) And I agree - wealthy and middle-class people, especially Christians, should stop claiming the moral high ground and blaming poor people for being poor.
I'll spare you my exhortations, though. "Evicted" is full of new insights about poverty, suffering, and injustice that seem obvious now but didn't before I read it. This is probably why it won so many awards: people and critics are desperate for new material. The San Francisco Chronicle agrees with me: "'Evicted' is the rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty."
Desmond closes the book's introduction by saying, "Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord." (5) This seems obvious, but I never thought of it as a big deal - maybe that's because of my privilege.
"Evicted" also contrasts the housing struggle with other issues. In a memorable passage, Desmond writes, "If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out." (98)
Desmond weaves several stories together in "Evicted." Some of the stories are interconnected, but it can be hard to follow at times.
One point I will make is that Desmond obviously wrote "Evicted" with an agenda. His primary goal, in my opinion, was to get his reader to sympathize with the array of tenants whose lives and struggles he depicted, which in my case, he achieved. As I said earlier, they are people just like me.
He also portrays their landlords, whomever they may be, almost negatively. Given how they treat renters, this may be fair. But I think that they are also people like me and a lot of them struggle - which Desmond does touch on. To his credit, he makes this concession towards the end of the book.
I guess what I am saying is that while Desmond describes the crisis in great detail, he oversimplifies the interpersonal aspect for the sake of his agenda. Many authors do this when they write informative pieces, so I will not hold that against him by docking a star.
There are three other things that "Evicted" deserves credit for.
The first is that Desmond obviously did his research. Everything in the book is backed up with citations, and the back matter contains over fifty pages of notes. You can't accuse him of not knowing the facts.
Second, it is hard to write in more than one style. Desmond does an excellent job of blending the informative style with the narrative style, often in the same chapter or passage. That takes talent and effort.
And third, "Evicted" offers real solutions. Desmond calls on the government to give low-income people housing aid, a plan he explains and defends in the epilogue. He also concedes that there is no one solution and that many people need to work together.
All in all, "Evicted" informed me and opened my eyes to a real problem in modern America. I highly recommend it to anyone concerned about social issues.
Comments