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- Title: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
- Author: Matthew Desmond
- Narrator: Dion Graham
- Length: 11:04:00
- Version: Abridged
- Release Date: 01/03/2016
- Publisher: Random House (Audio)
- Genre: Non-Fiction, Social Science
- ISBN13: 9.78E+12
Through a cultural lens, Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”, narrated with gripping clarity by Dion Graham, offers an unflinching look at the intersections of poverty, housing, and resilience in modern America. As a literature professor who’s spent years dissecting how stories reflect societal truths, I approached this audiobook with a mix of scholarly curiosity and personal investment. What fascinates me most is how Desmond transforms raw sociological data into a tapestry of human experience – eight Milwaukee families caught in the relentless churn of eviction, their lives laid bare with both tenderness and precision.
This audiobook experience resonates deeply with me, stirring memories of my time as a visiting professor in Tokyo. There, I encountered Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore”, a work that, like “Evicted”, uses individual lives to probe larger existential questions. While Murakami’s magical realism contrasts with Desmond’s stark realism, both authors share a knack for making the personal universally poignant. Listening to “Evicted”, I recalled those late Tokyo nights, headphones on, letting narrative voices bridge the gap between my world and another’s. Similarly, Dion Graham’s narration – steady, empathetic, and unadorned – became my guide through Milwaukee’s tenements, much like a trusted companion illuminating a foreign landscape.
Desmond’s work centers on a devastating truth: home is not just a place but a foundation for identity, security, and hope. Through the stories of Arleen, a single mother battling landlords and bureaucracy, or Lamar, a legless veteran scrambling to protect his children, he exposes the predatory mechanics of the low-income housing market. The audiobook lays bare how profit-driven evictions perpetuate a cycle of instability, a theme that echoes the systemic inequalities I’ve explored in my Contemporary Fiction seminar at Berkeley. There, we once compared “Cloud Atlas” across mediums – book, ebook, audiobook – and marveled at how audio heightens emotional immediacy. “Evicted” does this masterfully, its listening experience amplifying the urgency of each family’s plight.
Graham’s narration deserves its own spotlight. His voice carries a quiet gravitas, shifting effortlessly between the weary resignation of tenants and the cold indifference of landlords. The audio quality is crisp, with no distracting flourishes – just the raw power of the words and their delivery. At 11 hours and 3 minutes, the duration might seem daunting, but Graham’s pacing keeps you tethered, each chapter unfolding like a documentary you can’t pause. This isn’t a performance that seeks to dazzle; it’s one that serves the text, letting Desmond’s meticulous research and vivid storytelling shine.
What strikes me most is how “Evicted” reframes poverty not as a personal failing but as a structural trap. Desmond, a Princeton sociologist and MacArthur ‘Genius,’ blends ethnographic depth with narrative flair, a rare alchemy that earned the book its Pulitzer Prize. His scenes – of children playing amidst eviction notices, of mothers choosing between rent and food – are wrenching yet never exploitative. Through a cultural lens, I see parallels to Asian literature’s focus on communal struggle, like the intergenerational sagas of Mo Yan, though Desmond’s scope is tightly American, rooted in Milwaukee’s racial and economic divides.
Yet, the audiobook isn’t flawless. At times, the sheer weight of despair can overwhelm, leaving little room for the ‘fresh ideas’ promised in its description. While Desmond critiques the system, his solutions – vague calls for policy reform – feel overshadowed by the problem’s enormity. As a listener, I craved more moments of hope, those flickers of resilience that punctuate the text but fade too quickly in the audio’s relentless march. Still, this heaviness is also its strength, a refusal to sugarcoat a crisis that thrives in silence.
Compared to other social justice works, “Evicted” stands apart from, say, Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed”, which I’ve taught alongside it. Ehrenreich immerses herself in low-wage life, her first-person lens intimate but limited; Desmond steps back, weaving a broader, multi-perspective narrative that’s both scholarly and soulful. Graham’s narration enhances this, lending a gravitas Ehrenreich’s text lacks in audio form. For fans of non-fiction that marries data with humanity – like Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” – this audiobook will feel like a natural companion, though its American specificity sets it apart.
I recommend “Evicted” to anyone who values the audiobook experience as a portal to empathy – students of social science, policy advocates, or simply those who believe stories can shift perspectives. It’s not a light listen; it demands attention and introspection. But for those willing to engage, it’s a revelation. If you can access it as a free audiobook – say, through a library service like Hoopla or a trial on Audiobooks.com – it’s an opportunity not to miss. The digital price of $25 feels steep, but the value of its insights far exceeds the cost.
Reflecting on this, I’m reminded of a moment from my Berkeley seminar: a student argued that audiobooks humanize statistics in ways print can’t. “Evicted” proves her right. Listening to Arleen’s voice through Graham’s, I felt her exhaustion in my bones, a visceral connection that lingered long after the final chapter. As someone who’s traced storytelling’s evolution – from oral traditions to digital narration – I find this audiobook a testament to the medium’s power, a bridge between the academic and the lived.
With appreciation for stories that illuminate,
Prof. Emily Chen
