Detroit

Schöne Sprache, das eine oder andere Wort musste ich im Wörterbuch nachschlagen. Inhaltlich zum einen sehr deprimierend, zum anderen aber auch sehr spannend und interessant.

This is less an autopsy of Detroit and more an autobiography of the author, Charlie LeDuff. It's an interesting and usually saddening series of vignettes about Detroit and the extreme poverty and corruption that are destroying it, strung together by stories about LeDuff and his family and written in an almost Raymond Chandler style, painting LeDuff as some long-suffering, hard edged guy hero with a heart of gold singlehandedly trying to fight for the city and its inhabitants.

The whole book is really about LeDuff, but Detroit gives him an interesting backdrop to look good against. That said, he still tells an interesting story and paints a vivid picture of a suffering city. Don't expect to really learn much about Detroit from the book though, just little glimpses and fragments framed as unconnected personal interest pieces.

This book has a noir feel to it and paints a sad but accurate picture of Detroit.

A brief story by a ballsy reporter [see also his interview on Fresh Air] that nails Detroit. I found it refreshing to read a story about a city and its corruption. The corruption in society is usually ignored, certainly in my state, the whole of which runs like a small town - but it is accentuated in Detroit, because everything else that one might consider worthwhile has shriveled up.