Flophouse Book

With 100 interviewees and only 50 stories told, this could've been twice as long. Isay et al. couldn't get access to the other four out of the eight Bowery flops still surviving in 1998 or it could've been twice again as long. I'd have been satisfied either way. The one-page vignettes are pruned and shaped to a fare-thee-well, as might be expected from radio folks skilled in cutting tape. What's most remarkable is that the authors succeed in transforming readers' voyeuristic interest into real empathy. There is no romanticizing "gritty" New York. Most of these lives lived one rung above the streets share a few commonalities: substance abuse, mental illness, family trouble, grief. It's not hard to imagine how quickly and completely an American life can fall apart.

The flops have residents who consider themselves born to lose and there are those who know they've all but engineered their descent. There are those on welfare and those who thrill to their shoe-leather hustles. Some find comfort in their chicken-wire cells and some deem them a cage. Some of the men dream of getting out and some know they never will. A sane society would admit we've failed them all.