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'Evicted' probes the multiple dimensions of the housing crisis

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

by Matthew Desmond
(Crown Publishers,
2016;
$37.00)

Once bursting with well-paying jobs in the brewing and manufacturing industries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is now the second-poorest city in America. Over 170,000 people, including 41 per cent of the city's African-American and 32 per cent of the city's Hispanic residents, are living in poverty.

Between 2009 and 2011, one in eight Milwaukee residents were forced from their homes by eviction or foreclosure. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City tells their stories. Written by Matthew Desmond, now a Harvard sociologist, the book follows eight families, Black and white, who struggle to keep a roof over their heads.

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'Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist' captures the spirit of protest

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

by Sunil Yapa
(Little, Brown and Company,
2016;
$31.50)

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Dreaming of the unknown: The startling realities of migrant workers

Meet Me in Venice: A Chinese Immigrant's Journey from the Far East to the Faraway West

by Suzanne Ma
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2015;
$31.95)

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Three pages into Meet Me in Venice the reader learns that there are more than 214 million migrants worldwide: a startling one of every 33 people in the world alive is a migrant. Author Suzanne Ma, an experienced journalist based in Vancouver, is concerned with these facts, however, she's just as interested in the people behind the numbers.

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Searching for salvation: 'Binary Star's' journey across addiction, disease and abuse

Binary Star

by Sarah Gerard
(Two Dollar Radio,
2015;
$16.00)

"Sickness is reciprocal," says the unnamed narrator of Binary Star, Sarah Gerard's feverish debut novel. The narrator is anorexic and involved in a long-distance relationship with an abusive alcoholic who has latched onto a blurred vision of anarchist veganism.

"It's a symbiotic relationship of sickness," says Gerard. "It's something that the narrator shares with her culture, also shares with her boyfriend. She's battling within herself this desire to stay sick and this desire to live."

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'Nothing Looks Familiar' asks: 'What does it mean to live in a body today?'

Nothing Looks Familiar

by Shawn Syms
(Arsenal Pulp Press,
2014;
$15.95)

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"I won't go out with another man on the killing floor," says Wanda, the narrator of 'On the Line,' in the opening line of Shawn Sym's debut collection Nothing Looks Familiar. "I can't stand the smell of them, or their attitudes."

Wanda's potential suitors work with her in a meat-packing plant, and carry the smell of dead flesh on their skin. Her preoccupation with their bodies' scent is understandable. It is also emblematic of the author's thematic concerns.

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In conversation with author Doretta Lau

Photo: flickr/Florin Gorgan
Yutaka Dirks interviews author Doretta Lau and reviews her debut collection of short stories 'How Does A Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?'

Related rabble.ca story:

Doretta Lau sets a new standard in Canadian literature

How Does A Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?

by Doretta Lau
(Nightwood Editions,
2014;
$19.95)

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Free the Cuban Five! Lies, conspiracy and hypocrisy fuel 'What Lies Across the Water' to deliver the truth

What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five

by Stephen Kimber
(Fernwood Publishing,
2013;
$29.95)

On September 12, 1998, the FBI mounted coordinated raids in locations across the state of Florida, arresting ten people. The FBI alleged that they were members of a Cuban spy network, sent by Castro to undermine the security of the United States of America.

They were also accused in the deaths of four Cuban exiles from Miami, who had been shot down by the Cuban Air Force in 1996.

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Interview: Literary leftist thriller: Pulp fiction with a twist of solidarity and social justice

Tailings of Warren Peace

by Stephen Law
(Fernwood Publishing,
2013;
$19.95)

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Someone is affixing pink pages to the light poles on Warren's street, each containing a small fragment of text. One sentence at a time, the mysterious notes tell a dark tale of familial love and loss.

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Review: Power grab: Examining gender dynamics through prose and allegory

How To Get Along With Women

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi
(Invisible Publishing,
2012;
$16.95)

The 11 stories in Elisabeth de Mariaffi's debut story collection, How to Get Along With Women, take place in locales as diverse as Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Marseille, France. The stories are intimately linked to their particular settings; in each, de Mariaffi explores how the characters' actions are shaped by their geographical, historical or political place in the world.

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