NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION - FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by The New York Times Book Review - The Boston Globe - The Washington Post - NPR - Entertainment Weekly - The New Yorker - Bloomberg - Esquire - Buzzfeed - Fortune - San Francisco Chronicle - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Politico - The Week - Bookpage - Kirkus Reviews - Amazon - Barnes and Noble Review - Apple - Library Journal - Chicago Public Library - Publishers Weekly - Booklist - Shelf Awareness From Harvard sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind. The fates of these families are in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs one of the worst trailer parks in Milwaukee. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, "Love don't pay the bills." She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas. Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America's vast inequality--and to people's determination and intelligence in the face of hardship. Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.
Industry Reviews
One of President Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2017 "Astonishing... Desmond has set a new standard for reporting on poverty."
--Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Book Review
"After reading Evicted, you'll realize you cannot have a serious conversation about poverty without talking about housing.... The book is that good, and it's that unignorable."
--Jennifer Senior, New York Times Critics' Top Books of 2016
"This book gave me a better sense of what it is like to be very poor in this country than anything else I have read... It is beautifully written, thought-provoking, and unforgettable."
--Bill Gates
"Inside my copy of his book, Mr. Desmond scribbled a note: "home = life." Too many in Washington don't understand that. We need a government that will partner with communities, from Appalachia to the suburbs to downtown Cleveland, to make hard work pay off for all these overlooked Americans."
--Senator Sherrod Brown, Wall Street Journal
"My God, what [Evicted] lays bare about American poverty. It is devastating and infuriating and a necessary read."
--Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Difficult Women
"Written with the vividness of a novel, [Evicted] offers a dark mirror of middle-class America's obsession with real estate, laying bare the workings of the low end of the market, where evictions have become just another part of an often lucrative business model."
--Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times
"In spare and penetrating prose... Desmond has made it impossible to consider poverty without grappling with the role of housing. This pick [as best book of 2016] was not close."
--Carlos Lozada, Washington Post
"An essential piece of reportage about poverty and profit in urban America."
--Geoff Dyer, The Guardian's Best Holiday Reads 2016
"It doesn't happen every week (or every month, or even year), but every once in a while a book comes along that changes the national conversation... Evicted looks to be one of those books."
--Pamela Paul, editor of the New York Times Book Review
"Should be required reading in an election year, or any other."
--Entertainment Weekly
"Powerful, monstrously effective... the power of this book abides in the indelible impression left by its stories."
--Jill Leovy, The American Scholar
"Gripping and important...[Desmond's] portraits are vivid and unsettling.
--Jason DeParle, New York Review of Books
"An exquisitely crafted, meticulously researched exploration of life on the margins, providing a voice to people who have been shamefully ignored--or, worse, demonized--by opinion makers over the course of decades."
--The Boston Globe
"[An] impressive work of scholarship.... As Mr. Desmond points out, eviction has been neglected by urban sociologists, so his account fills a gap. His methodology is scrupulous."
--Wall Street Journal
Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist
Winner of the 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
Winner of the 800-CEO-READ Book Award -- Current Events & Public Affairs
Winner of the American Bar Association's 2017 Silver Gavel Award
One of The Los Angeles Times' 10 Most Important Books of 2016
A New York Times Editors' Choice
One of Wall Street Journal's Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books
One of O: The Oprah Magazine's 10 Titles to Pick Up Now
One of Vulture's 8 Books You Need to Read This Month
One of BuzzFeed's 14 Most Buzzed About Books of 2016
One of The Guardian's Best Holiday Reads 2016
