The Bookworm: Detroit: An American Autopsy
Detroit: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff. 287 pages. Penguin Books. 2013.
It would be easy to lay the blame on McNeal for the circumstances in which she raised her sons. But is she responsible for police officers with broken computers in their squad cars, firefighters with holes in their boots, ambulances that arrive late, a city that can’t keep its lights on and leaves its vacant buildings to the arsonist’s match, a state government that allows corpses to stack up in the morgue, multinational corporations that move away and leave poisoned fields behind, judges who let violent criminals walk the streets, school stewards who steal the children’s milk money, elected officials who loot the city, automobile executives who couldn’t manage a grocery store, or Wall Street grifters who destroyed the economy and left the nation’s children with a burden of debt while they partied it up in Southampton?
Can she be blamed for that? (p. 271)
Detroit is both a success story and epic tragedy—which is probably why it is a morbid fascination for many, including myself. Though I’ve never been to Detroit and don’t have any plans to go there (especially after reading this book), I find myself drawn to tales of the city’s past glory and current state of decay. It is an interesting place, which is why I bought Detroit: An American Autopsy at the Haunted Bookstore.
“It is a book of reportage” writes author Charlie LeDuff (p. 6) about Detroit. LeDuff moved his family to the Detroit area, where he grew up, during the throes of the financial crisis in 2008. He took a job at the Detroit News and immediately began reporting on the city’s scandal- and corruption-rife government, the sorry state of its municipal services, and the endless adversity and sorrow endured by its hearty citizens.
Detroit is the account of LeDuff’s first couple years back in the Motor City. It recounts his experience rediscovering not only the city but his family and himself, a strong conviction that “[t]he people of Greater Detroit deserved better than to be robbed by their leaders and forgotten by their neighbors” (p. 158), and LeDuff’s belief that Detroit is a microcosm of everything wrong with the United States, and perhaps even a sign of things to come: “Go ahead and laugh at Detroit. Because you are laughing at yourself” (p. 5).
Part memoir and part journalism, Detroit is candid and unfiltered. LeDuff’s keen, journalistic eye is evident in the stories he tells. His writing is combative, disgusted, and disgruntled. It feels overly masculine and macho at times, though; it can be sanctimonious and self-important, and his opinion often overshadows the reporting. But it’s all for a good cause, it seems. LeDuff is passionate about helping the city and its people; he is a defender of the public’s interest and money, something becoming increasingly rare as local media outlets fall victim to corporate consolidation and cost-cutting efficiency.
LeDuff is frank about how the city affects him and his personal life, which includes a night in jail following a drunken argument with his wife. His niece dies, one brother is forced to work at a screw factory to makes ends meet, and another brother loses his house. (Maybe it’s the same brother. I had a hard time keeping them apart.) He recounts the death of his sister, whose misadventures and tragic end mirror Detroit’s downfall. LeDuff shows that Detroit’s misery permeates everything and everybody. It is no wonder the city’s population has dropped 60 percent since its peak in the 1950s, leaving block after block of deteriorating or burned buildings, the wild reclaiming neighborhoods where working-class families once lived comfortably.
Detroit shows the back and forth between interviewer and source, the business of obtaining information, and the interactions journalists have with contacts, something I enjoyed and appreciated as an occasional journalist myself. LeDuff goes for the throat and does not fool easily—unlike me.
LeDuff also dives into his family history. I was skeptical that the endeavor had much of a connection to the book, but LeDuff learns just how intertwined his ancestry is to Detroit’s checkered racial history. It is interesting, but not as interesting as many of the stories LeDuff tells in Detroit.
Vivid and at times engrossing, Detroit is a very good book. But it is depressing as hell. It is hard to believe some of the things LeDuff writes are real; some details seem straight out of dystopian fiction. “This is a real place,” I reminded myself on more than one occasion. “This stuff is really happening.” That right there explains much of our morbid fascination with Detroit: It is appalling and uncomfortably close.
