Brian Goldstone, There Is No Place For Us ****

When I learned to sail, the heart of the certification test was the person-overboard drill. Successfully retrieving a person who falls overboard requires coordinating all of the skills learned throughout the course. I happen to believe that the crisis of homelessness holds a similar position with respect to contemporary societal issues: successfully addressing it requires coordinating our responses to wealth inequality, racism, class prejudice, dwindling public services, gentrification, and so on. That's why I read so many books on the subject (see here, here, and here).

There Is No Place For Us has the subtitle "Working and Homeless in America," but it doesn't really focus on the fact that working people can't afford housing. Its larger purpose is to draw attention to people who are not literally homeless: families residing in relatives' living rooms and extended-stay hotels and unlivable buildings. This group far outnumbers the more visible folks living in tents and on the streets, and they often don't have access to the same support services.

The book follows several families in Atlanta as they struggle to find and retain housing. Their challenges are relatable and infuriating, and they paint a clear picture of the business and social service ecosystems. I will admit, however, that I had a hard time remembering which families endured which trials and who was living where at any given time.

I appreciate that Goldstone stays locked into the families' perspective, but I do wish he had found a way to acknowledge the perspective of the landlords and/or government officials. The bureaucracy seems clearly intended to frustrate and humiliate the homeless; I would like to have someone attempt to explain why the system is set up the way it is. I am inclined to believe that homelessness is a systemic problem but many readers will believe that it's a function of the individual's poor choices; Goldstone doesn't attempt to address those readers.

Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan *****

My favorite Vonnegut novel. The Sirens of Titan deals with issues of fate, free will, personal responsibility, and the meaning(lessness) of life in the inimitable Vonnegut style. The science-fiction plot is silly but its questions are profound.

I can't provide anything close to an objective opinion about the book because it was so formative when I  read it in high school. My journals from the time are littered with quotes from Salo and Winston Rumfoord. Vonnegut's outlook is rather dark despite the surface humor. It would be a fantastic book club book because it's short, easy to read, and philosophical.

As they say in the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent:

I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Dream Count **

The first 11 pages of Dream Count are an excellent evocation of the social dynamics of Zoom calls during the COVID shutdown. The narrator Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in Maryland, and this introductory section introduces her international network of friends and family.

On page 12, Chiamaka turns her attention to previous boyfriends, making a "dream count" of other possible lives. She sketches the male characters well, but I quickly lost interest. I learned very little about her.

The book has sections devoted to three other women in Chiamaka's orbit: Zikora, a Washington D.C. lawyer; Omelogor, a successful financier in Nigeria, and Kadiatou, a Guinean maid who works for Chiamaka. These descriptions make them sound like interesting people, but they never become full-bodied characters. In fact, their characters feel inconsistent.

There is a horrific incident at the center of the story, one that Adiche confirms is the "seed around which I would weave my imagination," but like so much of the intriguing background it gets buried under clichéd chatter about dating. I'm not sure what Adiche wants to say.