Product Review

With 2017 Preface and Epilogue.

In this revealing study of a white working class neighborhood in Washington, D.C., Howell shows us that there is more than one kind of blue collar worker in America today. Hard Living on Clay Street is about two very different blue collar families, the Shackelfords and the Mosebys. They are fiercely independent southern migrants, preoccupied with the problems of day-to-day living, drinking heavily, and often involved in unstable family relationships. Howell moved to Clay Street for a year with his wife and son and became deeply involved with the people, recording their story. As readers, we too become participants in the life of Clay Street, and not just observers, learning what "living on Clay Street" is all about.

Titles of related interest from Waveland Press: Lyon-Driskell, The Community in Urban Society, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577667414) and Singer, The Face of Social Suffering: The Life History of a Street Drug Addict (ISBN 9781577664321).