Reviews
Bill Gates describes Evicted as "a brilliant portrait of Americans living in poverty" through its focus on people and the transformation of quantitative data into stories.[12]
Katha Pollitt from The Guardian writes that, “I can’t remember when an ethnographic study so deepened my understanding of American life.”[6] She applauds Desmond’s narrative approach in research and his demonstration of the intersection of housing, eviction, and poverty.[6]
Christian Schneider, writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, questions eviction as a root cause of poverty and argues that “eviction simply exacerbates the existing dysfunctions many of these people already carry with them,” including drug abuse, physical disability, domestic violence, and unemployment. Schneider describes housing insecurity as a “link” rather than a fundamental cause.[13]
Desmond discusses the book at the 2017 National Book FestivalAwards
- 2018 Order of the Coif Book Award[14]
- 2017 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[4]
- 2017 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award[15]
- 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction[16]
- 2017 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism[17]
- 2017 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize[18]
- 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award[19]
