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OverviewWhen the acclaimed author of Where Is Nicaragua? went in search of America's growing underclass-the persistent poor-he discovered a frighteningly large segment of the population for whom our cherished notions of equal opportunity and freedom for all are nothing but a mockery. Told in starkly human terms, courageous and compassionate, If You Came This Way is Peter Davis's shattering sojourn among our hopelessly impoverished fellow Americans ...young and old, victims and vagabonds, the struggling unemployed and the simply unemployable. Their strengths and weaknesses, fears and anxieties, needs and desires will surprise and haunt you. Praise for Peter Davis's. Where Is Nicaragua? This superb book is not only the definitive news about Nicaragua; it makes the ongoing news finally understandable. It is as elegantly written as V. S. Naipul's The Loss of El Dorado. Mr. Davis does not make his case in the manner of the polemicist; he convinces us morally in the manner of a good novelist. -John Irving. Stunning piece of firsthand reportage...he has captured the nuance, the ambiguity, the irony and the outright comedy of life among the Sandinistas and the contras. -J. Anthony Lukas. A brilliant examination of the process of revolution in Central America by a most gifted writer. Wonderfully written, it is filled with pleasures and insights. -Robert Stone. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Peter T. DavisPublisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc Imprint: John Wiley & Sons Inc Dimensions: Width: 14.70cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 22.60cm Weight: 0.444kg ISBN: 9780471110743ISBN 10: 0471110744 Pages: 224 Publication Date: 28 September 1995 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Stock Indefinitely Availability: In Print  Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock. Table of ContentsReviewsA thoughtful chronicle of the middle-class author's journey among some of America's extremely poor people, but flawed by his failure to appreciate their ability to occasionally enjoy, let alone transform, their lives. Davis (Where is Nicaragua?, 1987; Hometown, 1982) traveled around the country and talked to economically desperate people - some homeless, some welfare recipients. He found out, in the words of one unemployed mother of two, that the poor aren't who you think they are. They may want what you want and not be able to get it. Davis does an admirable job of countering fashionable victim-blaming rhetoric about the poor. He also brings to life people who may exist for some readers only as abstract social problems: Young Kelso of Bangor, Maine, whose father left him at the bottom of a well for days, has just fathered a child himself; Bryna, who lives in shelters, wants to be a journalist. But Davis is so overwhelmed by his own recent discovery of extreme, systemic poverty that he cannot give poor people credit for creating ways out of it, much less for finding pleasure and love in their lives. He reports facts that seem to indicate that a situation offers hope, but his narrative will almost always suggest that it does not. If mom's boyfriend and kid seem to enjoy spending time together, Davis can only focus on the biological dad who left and the economic instability of everyone involved. One woman has pulled herself off of welfare, is working to buy her house, and is planning to adopt a foster child she has been raising. She smokes pot as a release, and Davis darkly equates her relatively benign habit with that of her crack-addicted neighbor. Davis is a decent storyteller, but his tale would be more nuanced if he were interested in some of the less abject aspects of his subjects' existence. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationPETER DAVIS is the author of two previous books, Where Is Nicaragua? and Hometown. He was an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer/producer for CBS News and has written for numerous magazines and newspapers including Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. His films include the Academy Award-winning documentary Hearts and Minds and the Emmy Award-winning biography of John F. Kennedy, Jack. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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