Made in Detroit: A Memoir (PB) (2006)

Raised in Detroit during the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Paul Clemens saw his family growing steadily isolated from its surroundings: white in a predominately black city, Catholic in an area where churches were closing at a rapid rate, and blue-collar in a steadily declining Rust Belt. As the city continued to collapse--from depopulation, indifference, and the racial antagonism between blacks and whites--Clemens turned to writing and literature as his lifeline, his way of dealing with his contempt for suburban escapees and his frustration with the city proper. Sparing no one--particularly not himself--this is an astonishing examination of race and class relations from a fresh perspective, one forged in a city both desperate and hopeful.