Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises by Jodie Adams Kirshner

My family moved to Metro Detroit in 1963 for a better life. My folks did achieve their dreams–a blue-collar job, a home of their own, medical insurance, a decent income, and a pension to retire on. Dad loved his job at Chrysler.

Just a few years later my friends and I watched as planes with National Guard troops flew overhead and tanks lumbered along Woodward Ave., heading to Detroit. The city\’s legacy of racist policies had birthed rebellion.

Over my lifetime the once-great city plummeted into bankruptcy and stretches of \’urban prairie\’.

Why do we remove people from homes, leaving the houses empty to scrappers and decay and the bulldozers? Isn\’t it better for all to have the houses occupied, assist with their improvement, to have neighborhoods filled?

Jodie Adams Kirshner\’s Broke relates the series of events and decisions that brought Detroit from vibrancy to bankruptcy. But Kirshner doesn\’t just give a history of racist housing discrimination and government policy decisions. We experience Detroit through the stories of real people and their struggles to achieve their dreams.

Homeownership is the American Dream. Detroit\’s homeownership rate was once one of the highest in the nation. Then, African American neighborhoods were razed for \’urban renewal\’ projects while redlining curtailed housing options.

Kirshner shows how governmental decisions on the federal, state and local level disenfranchised Detroit residents who valiantly endeavor to remain in their homes and neighborhoods.

Bankruptcy, we come to understand, is not just a fiscal issue but hugely impacts individuals\’ lives.

These six people\’s stories are moving and devastating. They dream of owning the home in which they live. They purchase houses, repair them, and discover back taxes and water bills follow the house, not the resident, and they can\’t pay them. Investors purchase houses and let them stand empty while the family who had been living there are forced out.

They can\’t afford the $6000 a year car insurance they need to work–and to get their kids to school as Detroit has no school buses.

Some are native Detroiters but others were drawn to Detroit\’s atmosphere and sense of possibility. They are unable to obtain mortgages to purchase empty buildings for development.

They are never sure if rent payments are actually getting to the landlord, or if the discount car insurance they purchase is legit.

House damage remains unrepaired by distant landlords, jeopardizing the safety of a woman and her child.

Meanwhile, Midtown and Downtown development draws suburbanites at the price of huge tax breaks while neighborhood needs are ignored.

Kirshner is a journalist and bankruptcy lawyer and teaches at Columbia Law School. Broke offers deep insight through compelling narrative writing that illuminates and reaches our hearts.

I was granted access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Read how Kirshner came to write this book here.

“As a resident and business owner in Detroit, I think Broke captures the complexity and heartbreak here. Clear, accessible, and to the point, it’s so readable that I sped through it and then read it again to take notes.” —Susan Murphy, Pages Bookshop, Detroit

Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises
by Jodie Adams Kirshner
St. Martin\’s Press
Pub Date 19 Nov 2019
ISBN 9781250220639
PRICE $28.99 (USD)

*****

Read More:

Detroit 1967
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/06/we-hope-for-better-things-detroit-1967.html
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/09/once-in-great-city-detroit-story-by.html
The $500 House in Detroit by Drew Philp
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/04/building-new-world-order-500-house-in.html
Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/03/legacy-of-racism.html
Lost Detroit: Stories Behind the Motor Cities Majestic Ruins by Dan Austin and photos by Sean Doerr
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/01/detroit-city.html
The World According to Fannie Davis by Bridgitt M. Davis
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-world-according-to-fannie-davis-my.html

The Welcome Home Diner: A Taste of Detroit

I was attracted by the cover, and then intrigued by the story line of The Welcome Home Diner, which is set in a nearly abandoned East Side Detroit neighborhood.

Cousins Addie and Samantha are part of the influx of idealistic young people flocking to the city with visions of being part of its comeback. They buy a long abandoned diner and serve up locally sourced foods, using heirloom recipes from their Polish grandmother.

The book is packed with Detroit references from the Packard Auto Plant to the Detroit Zoo, the Eastern Market to Holiday Market.

The characters are optimistic and excited about Detroit\’s future, and happy to be part of its transformation. They hope that the Welcome Home Diner will become a neighborhood gathering place. But the locals are fearful: gentrification brings higher taxes, and those who have stayed can\’t afford to pay them.

Addie and Samantha both struggle with guy problems that require a need for self-understanding and personal growth. What they learn is good advice for all.

They take huge risks beyond investing in a decimated neighborhood. They hire an escapee from human trafficking and a young man whose tragic teenage mistake landed him in prison.

Behind the hard work, flirtations and commitment issues, and endeavoring to bring locals into the diner and not just suburbanites, they are being stalked by an unknown person who is trying to destroy all they are building.

I don\’t read a lot of \’women\’s fiction\’ or romance or \’foodie\’ books with recipes. This novel certainly will be enjoyed by readers who love those genres. I do read books that incorporate social and political issues into entertaining stories. This book certainly hit that mark for me.

Book Club Discussion Questions are included as well as recipes, including Greens with Turnips and Potlikker, Cabbage Rolls,  Lamb Burger Sliders, Ginger-Molasses Bundt Cake with lemon Curd, and Heartbreaker chocolate chip cookies! Yum!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Welcome Home Diner
by Peggy Lampman
Lake Union Publishing
ISBN: 9781542047821
PRICE $14.95

Author Peggy Lampman was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama but attended the University of Michigan, After working as a copywriter and photographer fin New York City she returned to Ann Arbor and opened a specialty foods store, the Back Alley Gourmet. Later, she wrote a food column for the Ann Arbor News and MLive. Lampman’s first novel, The Promise Kitchen, published in 2016, garnered several awards and accolades. She is married and has two children. She also writes the popular blog www.dinnerfeed.com.

From the publisher:
Betting on the city of Detroit’s eventual comeback, cousins Addie and Samantha decide to risk it all on an affordable new house and a culinary career that starts with renovating a vintage diner in a depressed area of town. There’s just one little snag in their vision.

Angus, a weary, beloved local, is strongly opposed to his neighborhood’s gentrification—and his concerns reflect the suspicion of the community. Shocked by their reception, Addie and Samantha begin to have second thoughts.

As the long hours, problematic love interests, and underhanded pressures mount, the two women find themselves increasingly at odds, and soon their problems threaten everything they’ve worked for. If they are going to realize their dreams, Addie and Samantha must focus on rebuilding their relationship. But will the neighborhood open their hearts to welcome them home?

Who\’s Jim Hines? Life in Jim Crow Detroit

I met author Jean Alicia Elster at a books and writers fundraiser at Leon & Lulu\’s in Clawson, MI. I bought her book The Colored Car, which I reviewed here, and the next year brought home Who\’s Jim Hines?

Elster\’s books are drawn from family stories about their life in 1935 when her grandfather ran a business delivering wood.

In Who\’s Jim Hines? we meet twelve-year-old Doug whose father runs the Douglas Ford Wood Company from their Halleck Street home in Detroit. Every day his father collects wood pallets from the auto factories, breaks them down, and loads them into his truck. He saws the wood into pieces sized for his customer\’s wood burning stoves, which is then delivered by his employees. Doug\’s mother runs the office, taking orders and managing the paperwork while caring for her family.

Their neighborhood, and the men who work for Doug\’s father, include African Americans, many from the South, and Polish immigrants. The families help each other, especially Doug\’s father who is grateful for their financial security during the Depression. He looks the other way when children steal a bit of wood to fashion playthings, and exchanges wood for services. The Ford family goes to nearby Hamtramack to shop, then a predominately Polish neighborhood and today a diverse multi-cultural magnet.

This is the story is of a boy\’s idolization of his father as a man and provider. Doug wants to be like his dad, but Douglas Sr has other plans: he intends that his son become a doctor.

The tension in the story is provided by Doug\’s gnawing need to know \’who\’s Jim Hines,\’ the faceless employee his dad says makes his business possible.

Doug must help his dad in his work to pay for lost school books, discovering exactly what it means to be black when he leaves the shelter of his narrow world.

In her Epilogue, Elster tells that after WWII and the decline in wood burning stoves her grandfather worked for Chrysler (as did my dad) and her father Doug Jr did graduate from medical school.

Written for ages eight through twelve, Who\’s Jim Hines? is a gentle story that brings a place and time in history to life, addressing an issue that resonates to this day.

Who\’s Jim Hines?
Jean Alicia Elster
Wayne State University Press
Publication 2008
ISBN: 9780814334027

Who\’s Jim Hines? Life in Jim Crow Detroit

I met author Jean Alicia Elster at a books and writers fundraiser at Leon & Lulu’s in Clawson, MI. I bought her book The Colored Car, which I reviewed here, and the next year brought home Who’s Jim Hines?

Elster’s books are drawn from family stories about their life in 1935 when her grandfather ran a business delivering wood.

In Who’s Jim Hines? we meet twelve-year-old Doug whose father runs the Douglas Ford Wood Company from their Halleck Street home in Detroit. Every day his father collects wood pallets from the auto factories, breaks them down, and loads them into his truck. He saws the wood into pieces sized for his customer\’s wood burning stoves, which is then delivered by his employees. Doug’s mother runs the office, taking orders and managing the paperwork while caring for her family.

Their neighborhood, and the men who work for Doug’s father, include African Americans, many from the South, and Polish immigrants. The families help each other, especially Doug’s father who is grateful for their financial security during the Depression. He looks the other way when children steal a bit of wood to fashion playthings, and exchanges wood for services. The Ford family goes to nearby Hamtramack to shop, then a predominately Polish neighborhood and today a diverse multi-cultural magnet.

This is the story is of a boy’s idolization of his father as a man and provider. Doug wants to be like his dad, but Douglas Sr. has other plans: he intends that his son become a doctor.

The tension in the story is provided by Doug’s gnawing need to know ‘who’s Jim Hines,’ the faceless employee his dad says makes his business possible.

Doug must help his dad in his work to pay for lost school books, discovering exactly what it means to be black when he leaves the shelter of his narrow world.

In her Epilogue, Elster tells that after WWII and the decline in wood burning stoves her grandfather worked for Chrysler (as did my dad) and her father Doug Jr did graduate from medical school.

Written for ages eight through twelve, Who’s Jim Hines? is a gentle story that brings a place and time in history to life, addressing an issue that resonates to this day.

Who’s Jim Hines?
Jean Alicia Elster
Wayne State University Press
Publication 2008
ISBN: 9780814334027