Alabama Village
Faith, Hope, and Survival in a Southern Town
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
From the celebrated writer J. Malcolm Garcia, a narrative nonfiction account of a forgotten Alabama neighborhood through intimate, tender, and gritty profiles of its people as they navigate immense loss and an unassailable determination to overcome their circumstances.
"J. Malcolm Garcia [channels] the empathetic ear of Studs Terkel and the investigative skills of the best literary journalists." —Beth Taylor, author of The Plain Language of Love and Loss
In Alabama Village, an impoverished and often violent neighborhood south of Mobile, the children no longer flinch at the eruption of gunshots. To them, it’s just another day. In this community, few things last—the loss of life is relentless, and relief efforts come and go. But John and Dolores Eads, a devout Christian couple who established Light of the Village church, stay. They spread their mission: lead with love, faith, and consistency—and don’t condemn or judge.
In interlacing chapters, award-winning journalist J. Malcolm Garcia follows the lives of the Alabama Village community and the kids who grew up at Light of the Village church. Da’Cino Dees saw his first shooting at eight years old and now works at Light of the Village; Aaron “Billy Boy” Amison has been dreaming about dead people since he was little and has been in and out of jail since he was fourteen; Jesenda Brown hopes to escape poverty by starting her own cleaning business; and although Corey “Bigg Man” Davis has accrued exuberant wealth from unknown sources, his personality is marked by his kindhearted generosity.
These striking, raw, and humanizing portraits, among others, showcase the Village and its people, in all its devastation and resilient determination. Alabama Village is an ode to communities and the individual narratives that make them whole.
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Journalist and novelist Garcia (Out of the Rain) offers a lyrical and immersive account of a town outside Mobile, Ala., stigmatized for its violence and poverty. Originally built to house shipyard workers in the 1940s, Alabama Village underwent steep declines in city services, employment opportunities, and safe housing over only a few decades, leading PBS to label it "one of the most violent places in the country" in 2020. Garcia crafts intimate character portraits of Village residents: the elder who survives on food stamps but still offers to shelter homeless neighbors, the respected gang leader who buys bicycles for local kids, the woman who is building a cleaning business to create a better life for her children. At the center of the story are an older couple who opened a ministry, Light of the Village, in an abandoned crack house in 2002, in part to create a "demilitarized zone" for the community. The couple, the narrative poignantly reveals, have touched many lives, but also suffered devastating losses among their congregation, as evidenced by more than 70 names on the church's Memorial Wall. While richly textured and novelistic, the narrative's up-close view can leave readers feeling the lack of a bigger picture. Still, it's a compassionate glimpse of a poverty-stricken town that delves deep beyond the statistics.
