About this item
A New York Times Notable BookFrom an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in AmericaLong-Listed for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award"A lesson for us all, and a testament to the bigness of the small story, to the power of intimate narratives to speak to something much larger." (The New York Times) Camila is 22 years old and a new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. In this extraordinary work of literary reportage, Lauren Sandler chronicles a year in Camilas life - from the birth of her son to his first birthday - as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessness in New York City. In her attempts to secure a safe place to raise her son and find a measure of freedom in her life, Camila copes with dashed dreams, failed relationships, the desolation of abandonment, and miles of red tape with grit, humor, and uncanny resilience.Every day, more than 45 million Americans attempt to survive below the poverty line. Every night, nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters, 40 percent of them children. In This Is All I Got, Sandler brings this deeply personal issue to life, vividly depicting one womans hope and despair and her steadfast determination to change her life despite the myriad setbacks she encounters. This Is All I Got is a rare feat of reporting and a dramatic story of survival. Sandlers candid and revealing account also exposes the murky boundaries between a journalist and her subject when it becomes impossible to remain a dispassionate observer. She has crafted a powerful and unforgettable indictment of a system that is often indifferent to the needs of those it serves, and that sometimes seems designed to fail.Praise for This Is All I Got"A rich, sociologically valuable work thats more gripping, and more devastating, than fiction." (BOOKLIST ) "Vivid, heartbreaking.... Readers will be moved by this harrowing and impassioned call for change." (Publishers Weekly) "A closely observed chronicle...Sandler displays her journalistic talent by unerringly presenting this dire situation.... An impressive blend of dispassionate reporting, pungent condemnation of public welfare, and gritty humanity." (Kirkus Reviews)
About the Author
Hi, I'm Lauren Sandler. I'm a journalist and author who writes about culture and inequality. My new book is called THIS IS ALL I GOT: A New Mother's Search For home. When I moved to New York City in 1992, homelessness was already considered a national crisis. The night I unpacked my bags uptown, 23,482 people slept in the city's public shelters. By the 2015 evening I met Camila, a twenty-two-year old homeless soon-to-be single mother, that number had tripled. THIS IS ALL I GOT begins as Camila goes into labor in a shelter in Brooklyn, and follows her to the overcrowded Bronx apartment where she lands after an untimely eviction. The book witnesses her navigate welfare benefits, housing vouchers, child support, and what she must endure to stay in college and stay sane. Throughout, Camila's intimacies--with people with whom she shares DNA, living space, desire, grudges, heartbreak--help us know this complicated character whose ambitions and passions are nearly as great as the constant crises she has no choice but to confront. Camila's caseworkers would tell you that they've never seen anyone as knowledgeable about the system in which she was stranded. It quickly became clear to me: If she couldn't use her wits and persistence to make the system work for her, no one could.My first book was RIGHTEOUS: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, about my journalistic immersion into the young Christian right. My second book, ONE AND ONLY: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One, considered how we want women to be mothers more than anything else, despite the US outlier status in supporting parents, and how we demonize what to many is a sane -- and loving choice -- to have just one kid. Thanks to everyone here who has read and reviewed both books.
