Dickensian Non-Fiction: Reviewing Desmond’s “Evicted”

The academic who’s gained the biggest rewards for writing about homelessness is Harvard and Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond. An above-average writer, Desmond received in 2015 a MacArthur “genius grant” of $625,000 and, following publication of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, a 2017 Pulitzer Prize.

The prize came with this explanation: “For a deeply researched exposé that showed how mass evictions after the 2008 economic crash were less a consequence than a cause of poverty.” Desmond deserves credit for living in two poor areas of Milwaukee as he researched his book, but discredit journalistically because he mentions that “the names of tenants, their children, and their relatives, as well as landlords and their workers, have been changed to protect their privacy.”

In one article Desmond wrote, readers learn only seven pages into the article, via an easy-to-overlook footnote, that “all names are pseudonyms.” Hmm. I’ve interviewed and written about many poor people, always identifying myself as a reporter, showing my reporter’s notebook, and clearly taken notes. I’ve quoted them, usually using their whole names, occasionally their first names, with rare exceptions (such as when writing about a long-ago convicted sexual abuser). No one has sued or even complained, and naming names is a check on non-fiction writers who might otherwise be tempted to fictionalize.

Following Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Evicted made it onto many distinguished “best books of the year” lists — New Yorker, NPR, Politico — and some not so distinguished, such as Entertainment Weekly. Desmond’s book received praise from Publishers Weekly for its “gripping storytelling,” from the Christian Science Monitor for its “compassionate story-telling,” and from Mother Jones for its “empathetic feat of story-telling and fieldwork.” The American Scholar praised “the indelible impression left by its stories.”

Story, story, story. Many reviewers loved the way Evicted reads like fiction. The New York Times said it was “written with the vividness of a novel,” a Shelterforce reviewer called it “as compelling as a novel. . . . I literally could not put it down,” Kirkus Reviews praised “a gripping, novelistic narrative,” More embraced “reportage with the depth and force of fiction,” and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it “a richly textured book with a Tolstoyan approach.”

Readers from abroad were also infatuated. Katha Pollitt wrote in The Guardian, “I can’t remember when an ethnographic study so deepened my understanding of American life.” Evicted made Guardian‘s “Best Holiday Reads 2016” list — “an essential piece of reportage about poverty and profit.” Another London publication, The Independent, praised Desmond’s ability “to wrench chaotic stories into clear prose.” A publication of the British Association for American Studies compared Desmond to Charles Dickens.

The Washington Post relished Desmond’s “beautiful prose about a complicated policy problem” and the Boston Globe said Evicted was “exquisitely crafted” — but to what end? The comparisons with fiction raise crucial questions: How much of Evicted is fact and how much, if not exactly fiction, is interpretation designed to push readers towards support for universal housing vouchers that would leave no Americans paying more for housing than 30 percent of their income?

Desmond at the end of the book gives a bit of background: “When I was growing up, my father was a preacher.” Well, so is Desmond, it turns out: As Portland State philosophy professor Alex Sager puts it, “Desmond provides a moral vision . . . a powerful invitation to awaken the imagination and indignation needed for change.” Like an appropriately modest preacher, he wants us to pay attention to the text, not himself: Desmond says in his conclusion, “I don’t matter. I hope that when you talk about this book, you talk first about Sherrena and Tobin,” two of his major characters.

So I will. Again, those are not their real names: Desmond gives all his characters aliases, thus protecting privacy but also giving him the opportunity to choose names as suggestive as Josiah Bounderby, Thomas Gradgrind, Uriah Heep, and Seth Pecksniff. Evicted includes 791 references to “Sherrena Tarver,” and in case her first name doesn’t sufficiently label her, Desmond describes her as an “inner-city entrepreneur” with “chestnut skin” who has “Sunday soul food dinners with her mom.”

Tarver has problem tenants, some who get carved up by the ghetto life that’s been the subject of many blaxploitation movies: One boyfriend takes “three pumps to the chest, and blood had run down him like a full-on faucet.” More about Desmond’s characters next week.