Extraordinary Praise for
EVICTED

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY

New York Times Book Review • Boston Globe • Washington Post

NPR • Entertainment Weekly • The New Yorker • Bloomberg • Esquire

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Politico • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • Amazon • Barnes & Noble Review

Apple • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly

“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

“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

“An essential piece of reportage about poverty and profit in urban America.”

—Geoff Dyer, The Guardian ’s Best Holiday Reads 2016

“ Evicted is astonishing—a masterpiece of writing and research that fills a tremendous gap in our understanding of poverty. Taking us into some of America’s poorest neighborhoods, Desmond illustrates how eviction leads to a cascade of events, often triggered by something as simple as a child throwing a snowball at a car, that can trap families in a cycle of poverty for years. Beautiful, harrowing, and deeply human, Evicted is a must-read for anyone who cares about social justice in this country. I loved it.”

—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“Should be required reading in an election year, or any other.”

— Entertainment Weekly

“Powerful, monstrously effective...[ Evicted ] documents with impressive steadiness of purpose and command of detail the lives of impoverished renters at the bottom of Milwaukee’s housing market... .In describing the plight of these people, Desmond reveals the confluence of seemingly unrelated forces that have conspired to create a thoroughly humiliated class of the almost or soon-to-be homeless... .But the power of this book abides in the indelible impression left by its stories.”

—Jill Leovy, The American Scholar

“Gripping and important...Desmond, a Harvard sociologist, cites plenty of statistics, but it’s his ethnographic gift that lends the work such force. He’s one of a rare academic breed: a poverty expert who engages with the poor. His portraits are vivid and unsettling... .It’s not easy to show desperate people using drugs or selling sex and still convey their courage and dignity. Evicted pulls it off.”

—Jason DeParle, New York Review of Books

“Thank you, Matthew Desmond. Thank you for writing about destitution in America with astonishing specificity yet without voyeurism or judgment. Thank you for showing it is possible to compose spare, beautiful prose about a complicated policy problem. Thank you for giving flesh and life to our squabbles over inequality, so easily consigned to quintiles and zero-sum percentages. Thank you for proving that the struggle to keep a roof over one’s head is a cause, not just a characteristic of poverty... . Evicted is an extraordinary feat of reporting and ethnography. Desmond has made it impossible to ever again consider poverty in America without tackling the role of housing—and without grappling with Evicted .”

— Washington Post

“ Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books... .The book is meticulously reported and beautifully written, balancing statistics with family stories that draw you in and keep you there. I hope that all the people who read and loved Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity will give Evicted a chance.”

—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth

“[An] impressive work of scholarship...novelistically detailed...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

“[Desmond] tells a complex, achingly powerful story... .There have been many well-received urban ethnographies in recent years, from Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day to Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers . Desmond’s Evicted surely deserves to take [its] place among these. It is 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.”

— Boston Globe

“This story is about one of the most basic human needs—a roof overhead—and yet Matthew Desmond has told it in sweeping, immersive, heartbreaking fashion. We enter the lives of both renters and landlords at shoulder height, experiencing their triumphs, struggles, cruelty, kindness, loss, and love. One hopes that Evicted will change public policy. It will certainly change how people respond to the world and those who inhabit it.”

—Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

“A shattering account of life on the American fringe, Matthew Desmond’s Evicted shows the reality of a housing crisis that few among the political or media elite ever think much about, let alone address. It takes us to the center of what would be seen as an emergency of significant proportions if the poor had any legitimate political agency in American life.”

— The New Republic

“Wrenching and revelatory...Other sociologists have ventured before into the realm of popular literature...but none in recent memory have so successfully bridged in a single work the demands of the academy (statistical studies and deep reviews of the existing literature) and the narrative necessity of showing what has brought these beautiful, flawed humans to their miseries... .A powerfully convincing book that examines the poor’s impossible housing situation at point-blank range.”

— The Nation

“Extraordinary...I can’t remember when an ethnographic study so deepened my understanding of American life.”

—Katha Pollitt, The Guardian

“This sensitive, achingly beautiful ethnography should refocus our understanding of poverty in America on the simple challenge of keeping a roof over your head.”

—Robert D. Putnam, professor of public policy, Harvard University, and author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids

“Like Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, this brilliant book is reportage with the depth and force of fiction. Its eye-opening details and data offer a new way to look at the affordable-housing crisis, the forces that perpetuate poverty, and the policies we need to fix a crazily stacked deck.”

— More magazine

“[ Evicted ] is harrowing, heartbreaking, and heavily researched, and the plight of the characters will remain with you long after you close the book’s pages... .Desmond’s meticulousness shows how precision is not at odds with compassionate storytelling of the underprivileged. Indeed, [it] is the respect that Evicted shows for its characters’ flaws and mistakes that makes the book impossible to forget.”

— Christian Science Monitor

“This is an extraordinary and crucial piece of work. Read it. Please, read it.”

—Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family

“A superb new book.”

—Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

“The poverty of others brings up terrible questions of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God and what if, were your circumstances or skin color or gender different, that could be you. Your gaze pulls away. But Desmond writes so powerfully and with such persuasive math that he turns your head back and keeps it there: Yes, it could be you. But if home is so crucial a place that its loss causes this much pain, Evicted argues, making it possible for more of us might change everything.”

— Vice

“ Evicted is a rich, empathetic feat of storytelling and fieldwork.”

— Mother Jones

“Matthew Desmond tells stories of people at their most vulnerable. The characters that populate this lyrical book, many of whom are women and children, are our true American heroes, showing great courage and mythic strength against forces that are much larger than the individual. Their stories are gripping and moving—tragic, too. It’s a wonder and a shame that here, in the most prosperous country in the world, a roof over one’s head can be elusive for so many.”

—Jesmyn Ward, author of Men We Reaped and Salvage the Bones

“ Evicted successfully interweaves the narratives of white characters living in a trailer park at the most southern point of Milwaukee with landlords and tenants in the sprawling black ghetto of the city’s North Side... .Desmond’s book manages to be a deeply moral work, a successful nonfiction narrative, and a sweeping academic survey—all while bringing new research to his academic field and to the public’s attention.”

— Slate

“ Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty. Desmond makes a convincing case that policymakers and academics have overlooked the role of the private rental market, and that eviction ‘is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty... .’ Evictions have become routine. Desmond’s book should begin to change that.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

“Matthew Desmond’s new book makes an undeniable case that we need to fix this all-American tragedy.”

— Huffington Post

“[A] carefully researched, often heartbreaking book.”

— Chicago Tribune

“ Evicted is a striking account of a severe and rapidly developing form of economic hardship in the United States. Matthew Desmond’s riveting narrative of the experiences of families in Milwaukee embroiled in the process of eviction will not only shock general readers, but it will broaden the perspective of experts on urban poverty as well. This powerful, well-written book also includes revealing portraits of profit-seeking landlords, as well as important findings from comprehensive surveys to back up the ethnographic research. Evicted is that rare book that both enlightens and serves as an urgent call for action.”

—William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Work Disappears

“ Evicted should provoke extensive public policy discussions. It is a magnificent, richly textured book with a Tolstoyan approach: telling it like it is but with underlying compassion and a respect for the humanity of each character, major or minor.”

— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“By immersing himself in the everyday lives of poor renters, Desmond follows in the tradition of James Agee, whose monumental 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men pounded the reader with clear-eyed and brutal descriptions of rural poverty in the Deep South.”

— Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Desmond seems to be that rare person who is a dedicated and careful researcher and a phenomenal writer. The stories he tells in Evicted are gripping and intimate, at the same time as compelling as a novel and painstakingly illustrating how people are trapped and what the systemic implications are of that. I literally could not put it down... .[ Evicted ] feels like it has the potential to catalyze a movement.”

— Shelterforce

“[A] masterful, heartbreaking book...The stories in Evicted are a haunting plea for us to do the right thing by families who ache for the simple routines that build a life—evening baths in a working tub for the kids, dinner cooked in one’s own kitchen, windows and doors that keep cold and danger out, a place to call home.”

— Sojourner

“[An] unflinching, richly detailed narrative... Evicted is an important book that provides an unvarnished account of the lives of the troubled and disorganized—some would say vulnerable—poor. It is thick with detail...and represents a new installment in a tradition dating back to Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890)... .One can find passages to admire on almost every page of Desmond’s book.”

— City Journal

“An intimate and beautiful work as poignant as it is insightful...Often you hear that an author writes well for an academic, as if he were being graded on a curve. But Desmond is a good writer, period. His prose is vivid and energetic; his physical descriptions can be small gems.”

— Bookforum

“A groundbreaking work...Desmond delivers a gripping, novelistic narrative... .This stunning, remarkable book—a scholar’s twenty-first-century How the Other Half Lives —demands a wide audience.”

— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Gripping storytelling and meticulous research undergird this outstanding ethnographic study... .Desmond identifies affordable housing as a leading social justice issue of our time and offers concrete solutions to the crisis.”

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Highly recommended.”

— Library Journal (starred review)

“It’s hard to paint a slumlord as a sympathetic character, but Harvard professor Desmond manages to do so in this compelling look at home evictions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of America’s most segregated cities... .[Desmond] does a marvelous job telling these harrowing stories of people who find themselves in bad situations, shining a light on how eviction sets people up to fail... .This is essential reading.”

— Booklist (starred review)

“ Evicted paints a detailed and heartbreaking portrait of the country’s eviction problem, and how it feeds into a cycle of poverty.”

— BuzzFeed

“Sociology’s next great hope...[Desmond] is positioned to intervene in the inequality debate in a big way.”

— Chronicle of Higher Education

“The extent of Desmond’s research is truly astonishing. More astonishing still is the fact that he’s able to condense all of his observations and data into a single nonfiction volume that is both unsettling and nearly impossible to put down.”

— Chicago Review of Books

“ Evicted is more than good journalism. While Desmond’s skill as a writer creates a narrative pull, his training as a sociologist forces him to ask why we haven’t had more data on perhaps our most pressing domestic crisis.”

— Christian Century

“Remarkable...[Desmond] has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail and a keen ear for dialogue... .[His] book is a significant literary achievement, as well as a feat of reporting underpinned by statistical labour, with details provided in copious endnotes. It is eloquent, too, on the harm eviction does—not just to individuals but also to communities and to the quality of civic and urban life.”

— The Financial Times

“Desmond’s acute observational skills, his facility with reported dialogue and his ability to wrench chaotic stories into clear prose make Evicted a vivid, if sometimes grueling, read.”

— The Independent (UK)

“A monumental and vivid study of urban poverty in America... Evicted demands attention.”

— The Sunday Times (UK) asY1ThjPo4pEqNLGnjQ6kZp1rYmLqJqL2uQ6vMWPP1mgrQw/hP9iqO/0PhEpRnPo