Stony Mesa Sagas

Chip Ward. Stony Mesa Sagas. Torrey House Press. 2017.

But in his last story, the one he didn'’t complete, he learned he leaned that sometimes It's hard to distinguish the the good guys from the bad and the bad guys do get away and the truth is suppressed. He’d investigated the shooting deaths by police of homeless men. Not just homeless. There were many people who are temporarily homeless while trying desperately to land on their feet, but the people who had been killed were chronically homeless. They are the ones we point to, the ones who live on the streets, sleep in parks and alleys, spend their days reading in public libraries, and sometimes rant on sidewalks, piss in the courthouse shrubs, and scream in the subway when visited by their inner demons  They’re the ones who cry with joy in fast food lines when angels appear above the condiment bar. 

     America, Buchman realized, had kicked the mentally ill out into the streets and then punished them for expressing the symptoms of untreated illness. Often, way too often , the ranters and screamers who didn’t or couldn’t respond to the police when confronted were coldly executed.  In case after case, an order was given once and given again. If the raging didn’t stop, a cop would calmly and deliberately take aim and then fire. These incidents had a cold and calculated aspect and they were becoming almost routine, like removing pests from a garden, bullets instead of bug spray. [p. 36-37]

COMMENT

      This is fiction, so it's made up, but the premise is drawn from real life. Ward's essay about homeless people at the public library [1] is probably the only essay ever written for an audience of librarians that has been turned into a Hollywood movie [2]. In the novel Buchman, Ward's fictional alter-ego (get it?), is a journalist who has quit his job and moved to a small town in Utah after a cover-up involving the murder of homeless people. There he continues to serve as a sort of  reference librarian/detective, helping people find and use useful information.  

    I don't think that Ward knew of any actual cover-up as horrifying as this fictional one, though I'm sure he was aware of abuses. After Ward's essay came out, many libraries actually made an effort to be more helpful to homeless patrons. [3] The Salt Lake Public Library, for example, staffs a Volunteers of America desk to help connect people with food, shelter and other services. 

     Public libraries are a key institution for democracy, one of the few places where people of all ages, ethnicity and social class all share the same space. It's hard to imagine a privatized space that would find ways to mitigate the disruption of homelessness or welcome homeless people in any way.

[1] Chip Ward, "How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel," TomDispatch.com, 2007 .
[2]  The Public (2018)
[3] Dowd, Ryan. The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness: An Empathy-driven Approach to Solving Problems, Preventing Conflict, and Serving Everyone. ALA Editions, 2018.
[4] [Book Review] Stony Mesa Sagas. Reviewed by Amy Brunvand in Catalyst magazine, November 2018.