Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist, spent years embedded in a trailer park and then Milwaukee's North Side to research Evicted, where he came to know the eight families whose stories feature prominently in this study of American poverty.
Evicted is a thorough, and infuriating, picture of the role that housing plays in the cycle of poverty ("one of the least studied processes affecting the lives of poor families"): how much money low-income families spend on rent; the many ways that these families can come to be evicted; the ongoing impact of evictions in obtaining affordable housing in the future. Where appropriate, Desmond also explores how these issues interact: how race and gender, for example, impact the landlord-tenant relationship, and how parenthood increases one's likelihood of eviction.
Evicted moves elegantly between the micro and the macro. The stories of the eight families in Milwaukee are engaging and heartbreaking, and provide human context for the study of larger economic forces at play in the United States. Desmond's writing is touching and heartfelt, and a call for readers to acknowledge the problem that exists and work to find a solution for it. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm