"Humans act brutally under brutal conditions." -- Footnote 2 to Chapter 17. Desmond is referring to one incident between two impoverished tenants, but he could just as easily be using this as a tagline for the entire book. Sure, there's some brutality between individuals, but what he exquisitely documents is the obscene, pervasive, crushing brutality of our broken systems in the U.S.

Desmond is a remarkable observer and listener, also a phenomenal writer. He meticulously documents his experiences and findings while also drawing you in to care deeply about his subjects: a fine balance, and he pulls it off with grace -- at no small cost to his psyche, as he explains in the afterword. Desmond has a prefrontal cortex as well as a huge heart, traits that can conflict deeply; we are fortunate that he combined them to produce this powerful book.

Please read this book. I know you may not want to, especially today (June 2020) or tomorrow (which will almost certainly be indescribably worse). I know you may feel helpless, because all the suffering he describes is needless and preventable and mostly far removed from your and my life. Please read it because we need to face this, need to be informed, and need to have conversations on how to address it.