by Katherine Seligman
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2021
292 pages
ISBN: 8781643750231
As a reporter living in San Francisco, author Katherine Seligman delivers a story ripped from the headlines, so terrible, but so unavoidable, yet often forgotten the next minute. Homelessness, especially in the soaring cost of living and tech bubble of billion dollar industry, is often ignored. People who live in San Francisco see the homeless every day, but do they SEE them? If they knew their stories, would they SEE them then?
Maddy Donaldo is a twenty-year old runaway who's been living in Golden Gate Park with a ragtag group of her found family and her dog. She knows how get food, when the shelter can take her in, where she can sleep safely, how to avoid danger, and when to trust. When she accidentally stumbles upon a homeless, dying boy taking his last breaths, she realizes the murderer is standing nearby and that he saw her. Maddy needs to disappear before he can get her and kill her.
On the run with her constant companion, Root, she moves night after night never sleeping in the same place. She avoids her old haunts and even some of her old "family." When the parents of the dead boy and the police close in on Maddy, she feels even more trapped. She doesn't want to relive anything. There's nothing she can tell them that will help. She's terrified the killer will find her. With the help a few caring adults, Maddy reaches a crossroads.
She must decide to go home--which is what everyone but Maddy wants or stay "free" but always looking over her shoulder.
This book was a tough read for me. It is not a feel good book, but you will feel empathy and sadness for Maddy. I was rooting for her and Root the entire time. This would be a good book for a book club. Maybe readers will come away with more understanding of homelessness and all the reasons someone could end up on the streets. I hope this book allows for discussion and change and makes cities act to help the homeless by finding them schools, books, job training, and daily needs. The problem (especially since Covid) has only gotten worse.
Recommended adult reading. This book won the Pen America Literary Award and the 2018 PEN Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and presented by Barbara Kingsolver.
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