Scan barcode
A review by sde
The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by Edward Burns, David Simon
3.0
This book was an in-depth look at life in an inner city neighborhood. It was interesting but got very repetitive. I think the author could have cut out a great deal and still have gotten the message across. After reading again and again of Gary shooting heroin or DeAndre skipping school, I just got bored, rather than sympathetic. In my experience in a much smaller city, there are more people trying to do good and hold the neighborhood together than is depicted in this book. Maybe once you get to a certain scale it becomes more intractable.
In books like this I always wonder how the author got so much information from folks in such detail. Would be curious to know more about the author's methods of investigating and talking to folks.
I did appreciate the insight into why the people around the "Corner" behave in the ways they do. They are not just self-destructive. For instance, for girls in this situation, it makes sense for them to have babies young, and all the handing out of birth control will not do much.
In books like this I always wonder how the author got so much information from folks in such detail. Would be curious to know more about the author's methods of investigating and talking to folks.
I did appreciate the insight into why the people around the "Corner" behave in the ways they do. They are not just self-destructive. For instance, for girls in this situation, it makes sense for them to have babies young, and all the handing out of birth control will not do much.