ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
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The casualties of prosperity
JOHN HAWKINS is moved by an oral history that examines five black families pushed into homelessness in the US
MARK TURNER is staggered by a gifted jazz pianist from the Welsh Valleys
JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang
SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective
New releases from Black Country, New Road, Anouar Brahem, and Jaywalkers
RICHARD CLARKE recommends a hugely valuable text for those seeking theoretical analysis and practical action to defend public services
BOB NEWLAND recommends an outstanding study of how images have shaped narratives of identity, resistance and power in South Africa
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
Brian Goldstone, Crown Publishing Group, £23
BRIAN GOLDSTONE tells us how we are all familiar the stigmatised homeless — “stumble-bum” winos, drug addicts, veterans of foreign or domestic abuse, the deincarcerated, the deinstitutionalised, folks living in Dickensian poverty — but now there’s a new and growing data statistic: the working homeless.
In his new book, Goldstone focuses on five families in the Atlanta area whose plight he sees as a dangerous rift in the social security safety net and a tipping point for the misery to come as class erosion continues to weaken the fabric of society.
“Families are not ‘falling’ into homelessness,” writes Goldstone, “they are being pushed.”
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