In 2013, the New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott wrote a series of articles about a girl named Dasani, who lived with her parents and seven siblings in one cockroach-infested room of a Brooklyn homeless shelter, said Ted Conover in The Washington Post.
Elliott knew that she’d found a remarkable subject in Dasani – a bright, charismatic 11-year-old who loved to dance and do backflips, but whose days began emptying the bucket her family used as a lavatory. And so, over the next seven years, she followed her and her “extremely at-risk” African-American family.
The result is Invisible Child, a work of immersive social reportage that ranks among the finest examples of the genre. Over the 600-odd pages of this meticulous book, a terrible truth becomes clear: that Dasani’s family – “and people like them” – are “stuck” in an endless cycle of poverty and “structural racism”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
At one point, tantalisingly, Dasani seems on the point of something better, said Christina Patterson in The Sunday Times: she wins a scholarship to a boarding school for underprivileged children, and “thrives” there for a while. But without Dasani to help look after them all, the family unravels. Chanel, her mother, succumbs to opioid addiction; Dasani’s siblings are taken into care. Feeling guilty, and missing her mother, Dasani starts misbehaving at her school, and ends up being expelled. Only when she has returned to her mother does her behaviour start to improve.
Elliott has won a string of awards for her reporting, and it’s easy to see why. “Her characters are so vivid they leap off the pages. The prose fizzes. The dialogue crackles.” This truly is a “magnificent” book, one surely destined to become a “classic to sit alongside those by giants such as Studs Terkel and George Orwell”.
Hutchinson Heinemann 624pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
Movies to watch in Februarythe week recommends Time travelers, multiverse hoppers and an Iraqi parable highlight this month’s offerings during the depths of winter
-
ICE’s facial scanning is the tip of the surveillance icebergIN THE SPOTLIGHT Federal troops are increasingly turning to high-tech tracking tools that push the boundaries of personal privacy
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’
Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
The Beckhams: the feud dividing BritainIn the Spotlight ‘Civil war’ between the Beckhams and their estranged son ‘resonates’ with families across the country
-
6 homes with incredible balconiesFeature Featuring a graceful terrace above the trees in Utah and a posh wraparound in New York City
-
The Flower Bearers: a ‘visceral depiction of violence, loss and emotional destruction’The Week Recommends Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ ‘open wound of a memoir’ is also a powerful ‘love story’ and a ‘portrait of sisterhood’
-
Steal: ‘glossy’ Amazon Prime thriller starring Sophie TurnerThe Week Recommends The Game of Thrones alumna dazzles as a ‘disillusioned twentysomething’ whose life takes a dramatic turn during a financial heist
-
Anna Ancher: Painting Light – a ‘moving’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends Dulwich Picture Gallery show celebrates the Danish artist’s ‘virtuosic handling of the shifting Nordic light’
-
H is for Hawk: Claire Foy is ‘terrific’ in tender grief dramaThe Week Recommends Moving adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s bestselling memoir
-
Our Town: Michael Sheen stars in ‘beautiful’ Thornton Wilder classicThe Week Recommends Opening show at the Welsh National Theatre promises a ‘bright’ future
