Name: Seeking Shelter
Author: https://www.simonandschuster.biz/authors/Jeff-Hobbs/36063537
ISBN: 9781797189062

About The Book

Winner of the California Book Award

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker

In the tradition of Evicted and Invisible Child, a “remarkably vivid...deeply empathetic” (Los Angeles Times) story that follows a single mother of six in Los Angeles courageously struggling to keep her family together and her children in school amid the devastating housing crisis—from the bestselling author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.

In 2018, poverty and domestic violence cast Evelyn and her children into the urban wilderness of Los Angeles, where she avoids the family crisis network that offers no clear pathway for her children to remain together and in a decent school. For the next five years, Evelyn works full time as a waitress—yet remains unable to afford legitimate housing or qualify for government aid. All the while, she delivers her children to school every day and strives to provide them with loving memories and college aspirations. Eventually Evelyn encounters Wendi, a recently trained social worker who, decades earlier, survived her own relationship trauma and housing crisis. Evelyn becomes one of Wendi’s first clients, and the relationship transforms them both.

Told from the perspectives of Evelyn, Wendi, and Evelyn’s teenaged son Orlando, Seeking Shelter is a “remarkably vivid and…deeply empathetic” (Los Angeles Times) exploration of homelessness, poverty, and education in America—a must-read for anyone interested in understanding not just social inequality and economic disparity in our society but also the power of a mother’s love and vision for her kids.

About The Author

Photograph by Lucy Hobbs

Jeff Hobbs

Jeff Hobbs is the New York Times bestselling author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award in Biography, was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal in nonfiction, and was made into the film Rob Peace. His most recent book, Seeking Shelter, won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the California Book Award for nonfiction, and was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker. He has taught nonfiction writing at Yale University, was a Guggenheim Fellow, and is also the author of Show Them You’re Good and Children of the State. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.

About The Readers

Janina Edwards

Photograph by Lucy Hobbs

Jeff Hobbs

Jeff Hobbs is the New York Times bestselling author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award in Biography, was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal in nonfiction, and was made into the film Rob Peace. His most recent book, Seeking Shelter, won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the California Book Award for nonfiction, and was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker. He has taught nonfiction writing at Yale University, was a Guggenheim Fellow, and is also the author of Show Them You’re Good and Children of the State. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.