Love, Sorrow and Rage

"Love, Sorrow, and Rage" gives powerful voice to women like Nora Gaines and Dixie Register, who tell us what it's like to live on the streets of New York, how it feels to lose your mind, about the taste of crack cocaine, and the sweetness of friendship. In this novel-like narrative of homelessness and hope, poor women share a table, their meals, and their intimacies with author Alisse Waterston. On the pages of this impassioned ethnography, Waterston puts mythic, demonized bag-ladies to rest, and in so doing, brings ordinary women to life. From drug addiction and the spread of AIDS to the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S., the topics in this book get front-page coverage in daily newspapers across the country. Waterston seeks to understand, to explain, and to solve the human crisis that surrounds us. Towards this end, she challenges us to look at the ways in which our society and the workings of our political, economic, and popular culture contribute to the suffering experienced by our most vulnerable citizens. An important corrective to popular depictions of the urban poor, "Love, Sorrow, and Rage" provides a penetrating analysis of the causes and consequences of poverty. It offers a deeper understanding of what leads to and perpetuates poverty and of the human complex of love, sorrow, and rage felt by those who experience it. "Love, Sorrow, and Rage" will engage readers interested in urban studies, women's studies, social issues and policies, anthropology, sociology, political economy, and New York City life. Author note: Alisse Waterston is Research Associate at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University and Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research.