(Photo: Bill Brett) When Michael Patrick MacDonald walks down ‘methadone mile’ he sees a familiar story among the addicts and panhandlers. “Most people down there come from places like I come from,” MacDonald said. Places of “poverty” and “trauma.” MacDonald grew up in the Old Colony housing projects during the height of the cocaine epidemic…
Penn State Professor Hopes to Add Voices Through Homeless Narratives
Penn State Professor Joshua D. Phillips opened his latest book, “Homeless: Narratives from the Streets,” with a Mother Teresa quote, “Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them.” Phillips’ book, which served as his graduate dissertation from Southern Illinois University, is taken from spending 2012…
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch: A Book Review
Crown Publishers, an Imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. www.crownpublishing.com “What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened.”—T.S. Eliot…
“Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winters: A Book Review
Mulholland Books/Little Brown & Company, Hachette Book Group; Goldsboro Books, UK Ltd. Edition S & N. Imagine if President Lincoln was shot before the Civil War took place and then, because of that and the greed of humankind, the Civil War never happened. If you were black and born into a slave state, there would…
“Ending Homelessness”: Panel of experts discuss new book that details problems and solutions
Photo: Gavia Strategies Timed to coincide with the release of a new book on solutions to homelessness, a panel of the book’s authors and its editor discussed prevalent issues facing the homeless community. Titled “Ending Homelessness: Why We Haven’t, How We Can,” the book features chapters on housing first, employing empowerment models and the changing…
“Tales of Repairman Jack” by F. Paul Wilson: A Review
“Tales of Repairman Jack,” published by Tor Books, New York, NY 10010, and Isher Books, distributed by the Gauntlet Press, among others. Repairman Jack is one of the most exciting characters ever to come out of the mind of F. Paul Wilson, who in his spare time is a practicing physician in Wall, New Jersey.…
“The Wolf Road” by Beth Lewis: A Book Review
Goldsboro Books, 23–25 Cecil St., London, WC2N 4E2, United Kingdom, S & N Limited Edition/and Crown Publishing Group, A Division of Penguin Random House “Think on why I ain’t killing you.”—Kreagar Elka doesn’t remember her parents. After a war that destroyed civilization, she lives in the wilderness with a man named Trapper. Trapper teaches her…
Boy’s Life: A Book Review
“Boy’s Life” by Robert R. McCammon, published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. Zephyr, Alabama, is a small town where Cory Mackenson grew up in the early 60s. His father, Tom, was a milkman and sometimes Cory would ride with him early in the morning to help drop off full bottles…
Evicted: Matthew Desmond’s bestseller chronicles extreme poverty and the struggle to find and keep stable housing
Photo: Michael Kienitz The government has been telling people that the economy has been making a steady but slow recovery from the Great Recession nine years ago. During most months over the past few years, the unemployment rate has suggested a rosy picture of job growth. GDP has slowly improved. The housing market has heated…
A Solace for Expression: The Pilgrim Magazine
In the basement of St. John Episcopal Church in Boston, there’s a brightly lit studio with white walls and wooden panel floors, filled with six tables of dynamic characters. In each person’s hand is a writing utensil and before them a pad to write on. After one hour, they pass the pads in, creating new…