At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman

 

I felt that way all the time. Something was coming for me and would never stop.~ from At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman 

Katherine Seligman's New Adult novel At the Edge of the Haight will shake up what you believed about young adults living on the street. By creating very real characters and following their daily lives, the author creates empathy and compassion. 

Maddy lives with a makeshift family on the streets and parks of San Francisco. With an absent father and a mentally ill mother, she left her foster parents home when she turned eighteen. 

Maddy has adopted a stray dog, her companion and protector. One day he leads her to the body of another street person, a young man. Nearby she notices a man, and assumes he murdered the boy.

Why was I acting like I was going to save everyone?~from At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman 

Maddy does what she can to help find the truth of the boy's death. His parents hope Maddy can help them understand their son and his life, and hope to help Maddy. But they are too isolated in their privileged life to understand Maddy's needs. She remains closed down, unable to trust.  

This is a character-driven read; the story has complications but the emotional tension of the crisis Maddy faces is internal, discovering a voice through photography, and reacting to an event that motivates her to risk change. 

There is threat and violence and sex, but appropriate for young adult readers.

The novel has the feel of a journalistic representation of the hard, lonely, alienated life on the street, the endless rounds of finding shelter and your next meal.  

I received a free ebook from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

At the Edge of the Haight
by Katherine Seligman
Algonquin Books
Pub Date: January 19, 2021 
ISBN: 9781643750231
hardcover $26.95 (USD)

from the publisher

The 10th Winner of the 2019 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, Awarded by Barbara Kingsolver

“What a read this is, right from its startling opening scene. But even more than plot, it’s the richly layered details that drive home a lightning bolt of empathy. To read At the Edge of the Haight is to live inside the everyday terror and longings of a world that most of us manage not to see, even if we walk past it on sidewalks every day. At a time when more Americans than ever find themselves at the edge of homelessness, this book couldn’t be more timely.”
—Barbara Kingsolver, author of Unsheltered and The Poisonwood Bible 

Maddy Donaldo, homeless at twenty, has made a family of sorts in the dangerous spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She knows whom to trust, where to eat, when to move locations, and how to take care of her dog. It’s the only home she has. When she unwittingly witnesses the murder of a young homeless boy and is seen by the perpetrator, her relatively stable life is upended. Suddenly, everyone from the police to the dead boys’ parents want to talk to Maddy about what she saw. As adults pressure her to give up her secrets and reunite with her own family before she meets a similar fate, Maddy must decide whether she wants to stay lost or be found. Against the backdrop of a radically changing San Francisco, a city which embraces a booming tech economy while struggling to maintain its culture of tolerance, At the Edge of the Haight follows the lives of those who depend on makeshift homes and communities.

As judge Hillary Jordan says, “This book pulled me deep into a world I knew little about, bringing the struggles of its young, homeless inhabitants—the kind of people we avoid eye contact with on the street—to vivid, poignant life. The novel demands that you take a close look. If you knew, could you still ignore, fear, or condemn them? And knowing, how can you ever forget?”