Getting Ghost: Two Young Lives and the Struggle for the Soul of an American City

(Hardback)

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Description

After conducting research inside Detroit's juvenile detention facilty, Bergman befriended two inmates, Dude and Rodney. Living with them for more than three years in one of the city's most notorious neighbourhoods, Bergman brilliantly explores the complex contradictions of Detroit, where African-Americans firmly hold municipal power, but also suffer the legacy of lost manufacturing jobs and white flight. For Dude and Rodney, young men trying to find legal employment, getting ghost' is a rich metaphor for leaving a trade and for their own mortality.'

Reviews

"We see into these peoples lives; the reader feels their hopes, their fears, their joys, and their tragedies. Dr. Bergmann writes with incredible fluencywhether capturing dialogue from the streets or dissecting complicated sociological theory . . . this work will have a tremendous impact." —Paul Fine, Michigan Society of Fellows

Author Bio

Luke Bergmann is the director of programs for the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care and Treatment for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He is the author of Getting Ghost (The New Press), which he wrote and researched in Detroit while a postdoctoral fellow with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.