The City of Detroit's motto is "Speramus meliora; resurgent cineribus", which translates to "We hope for better things, it will rise from the ashes". Which sounds really on the nose for Detroit now, but actually dates back to 1805 and the aftermath of an actual fire. So how did a city once known for its prosperity and loveliness (called the "Paris of the West"!), turn into...well, Detroit as we know it? When reporter Charlie LeDuff returned to his hometown after spending more than a decade working at The New York Times, he started up at The Detroit News, and his attempts to answer that very question went into his book, Detroit: An American Autopsy.

Detroit is a mix of a little bit of several things: part history, part investigation of public corruption, part memoir. The issues of the city aren't just abstract facts to LeDuff...he grew up there, watched his mother struggle to maintain her business and raise her family as the crime rate spiked, and his own sister became addicted to drugs and died young, leaving behind a daughter who's on the same path. He traces the city's boom, and then the white flight that began when the Great Migration brought Southern black people to the industrial north, and then the increasingly shady operations of the City Council. LeDuff began his tenure at the News as Kwame Kilpatrick's reign as Mayor was in its death throes, his misconduct and that of other City electeds like Monica Conyers finally becoming so blatant it could no longer be swept under the rug.

In the strongest portions of the book, LeDuff takes one aspect of the very real consequences of municipal mismanagement, the woeful underfunding of the Fire Department, and uses it as a microcosm of the larger problem. He introduces the firefighters, constantly called out into a sprawling, arson-happy city with trucks and equipment well past expiration dates. But they keep on going anyways, out of love for each other and a sense of duty to the residents, even though the conditions they're put in mean they're at much higher risk of death and injury.

These firehouse sections are so strong, in fact, I found myself wishing they had been the whole book. LeDuff's an undeniably talented writer, but his lack of focus made it less compelling than it could have been. I found the memoir-esque portions least interesting, and while his look at the malfeasance at City Council did grab my attention, it wasn't nearly fleshed out enough to paint a full picture. LeDuff's connection with the firefighters and sympathy for their Sisyphean task is obvious, and the work just comes alive when he's spending time with them. As it is, the book tries to do a little too much, and sacrificing its ability to do any of it to a level of true excellence. It's good, and if you're into reading about Detroit, it's well-worth your time, but if you don't have an underlying interest in the city, it might not be for you. ( )

As I was reading this book a news flash appeared that confirmed former Detroit Mayor Kwami Kilpatrick was convicted of corruption and will likely spend many more years in jail. Kilpatrick is one of several corrupt Detroit officials who appear in LeDuff's literary assassination of the city and its government. In his account public officials steal, lie, and cover-up. They don't fix things. They divert public funds. Businessmen are either corrupt or incompetent or simply uncaring. Policemen and firemen are heroes. Their bosses are careerist and often as corrupt as the politicians. LeDuff goes some distance to concluding that one of Detroit's main problems is that they no longer have the tax base to support public services. But he would add that even if they did have the tax base, somebody would steal it. Is his book really about Detroit? Is it about capitalism? Democracy? Democrats? Or just man's inhumanity to man. I have to think about it a little more deeply before I decide myself. The writing and the reportage is very moving. The death of children caught in the crossfire, finding a homeless man frozen in ice, a fireman caught in a burning building, street banter amongst the dispossessed. All are rendered very real and very frightening. ( )

A decidedly male portrait of a complex city. Detroit noir. The author did a great job of connecting the chapters and vignettes. He writes out of utter respect for the tragic foibles of man. And woman. It’s a city that breaks your heart, because it is committed to. Still, there is a dignity in a poverty of means and spirit that sends the eyes heavenly. There are no lost cities. Particular people with utterly no concept of leadership and community, and sadly monied interests, lose them. ( )

A brief story by a ballsy reporter [see also his interview on Fresh Air] that nails Detroit. I found it refreshing to read a story about a city and its corruption. The corruption in society is usually ignored, certainly in my state, the whole of which runs like a small town - but it is accentuated in Detroit, because everything else that one might consider worthwhile has shriveled up. ( )

Charlie LeDuff, a street-savy journalist, writes about the demise of his home town of Detroit. It's probable that most Americans are aware of the problems of Detroit - collapse of the automotive industry and manufacturing, resulting in the loss of jobs, huge local unemployment, and a decreasing tax base. And these problems led to the decline in public services, failing schools, rising crime rates, increasing drug use, the abandonment of homes, arson, and unfortunately, continuing corruption of public officials. LeDuff brings the story to life by talking to and about real people, not simply by a litany of dry statistics. By describing these problems through the eyes and voices of real people of Detroit, the problems are made all the clearer and that much sadder. ( )