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A review by esdeecarlson
Gentrifier: A Memoir by Anne Elizabeth Moore
5.0
**This book was provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.**
A highly engaging and readable memoir.
Told in short, digestible vignettes, Gentrifier recounts the experience of the author after being “gifted” a “free” house in an underserved neighborhood in Detroit. Both Moore’s personal experience and the history of the house itself turn out to be more complicated, particularly within the broader American and Detroit-centric history of race, class, and power, than initially meets the eye.
What I particularly like about the memoir is that it knows when to pull back. My favorite vignettes concern the children in Moore’s neighborhood, particularly Nishat and Sadia, and the friendship Moore forms with them. A lesser writer would take this opportunity to reflect upon her own contributions to the girls’ lives; instead, Moore lets the girls speak through their own words and actions, and does away with any self-indulgent or self-centering reflection. She peppers in historical data when necessary, but this book isn’t a history of redlining or immigration or gentrification on a large scale—merely one woman’s, and “her” house’s, rather conflicted roles within it.
A highly engaging and readable memoir.
Told in short, digestible vignettes, Gentrifier recounts the experience of the author after being “gifted” a “free” house in an underserved neighborhood in Detroit. Both Moore’s personal experience and the history of the house itself turn out to be more complicated, particularly within the broader American and Detroit-centric history of race, class, and power, than initially meets the eye.
What I particularly like about the memoir is that it knows when to pull back. My favorite vignettes concern the children in Moore’s neighborhood, particularly Nishat and Sadia, and the friendship Moore forms with them. A lesser writer would take this opportunity to reflect upon her own contributions to the girls’ lives; instead, Moore lets the girls speak through their own words and actions, and does away with any self-indulgent or self-centering reflection. She peppers in historical data when necessary, but this book isn’t a history of redlining or immigration or gentrification on a large scale—merely one woman’s, and “her” house’s, rather conflicted roles within it.