The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

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The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

4.38 of 5 stars 4.38 · rating details · 2,162 ratings · 318 reviews

The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known--and cautiously avoided--by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling sto...more

Paperback, 576 pages

Published June 15th 1998 by Broadway (first published 1997)

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Feb 03, 2012 Kinga rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: special-place-in-my-heart

"The Corner is rooted in human desire - crude and certain and immediate. And the hard truth is that all the law enforcement in the world can't mess with desire."

I have this flaw in my character that I am extremely judgmental. I try to fight it. I try to tell myself I don't know the circumstances. I can't see the whole picture. But no matter how hard I try, there is always that voice in my head that keeps saying "why can't people just get their shit together". You know, go get a job, stop selling...more "The Corner is rooted in human desire - crude and certain and immediate. And the hard truth is that all the law enforcement in the world can't mess with desire."

I have this flaw in my character that I am extremely judgmental. I try to fight it. I try to tell myself I don't know the circumstances. I can't see the whole picture. But no matter how hard I try, there is always that voice in my head that keeps saying "why can't people just get their shit together". You know, go get a job, stop selling drugs, leave that abusive relationship, don't join a gang, don't do drugs. Just say 'no', right?

I will tell you this - no one has managed to do more for my personal improvement than David Simon and Ed Burns with this book of theirs. I can almost feel I am a better person now. 'The Corner' is a documentary of one year of the Corner of West Fayette and Monroe in West Baltimore. People getting high, people selling drugs, people getting in trouble, people shooting each other, kids having kids - you know the statistics. Now, Simon and Burns show you the people behind the statistics. They don't patronize or infantilize their subjects. They humanize them. They tell you like it is, they don't try to justify them, or blame everything on the system.

This is not an easy read because the portraits of Fran, DeAndre, Gary, Blue or Fat Curt hit a little close to home. Well, of course I like to think that if I were born in the ghetto I wouldn't let that happen to me, I would just work hard, and try hard, and I wouldn't get in trouble.

Because I am so strong-willed, right? I can't fucking manage two days without chocolate but I would make it out the ghetto.

As the authors say: "Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkly assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now possess."

If this book doesn't bring you close to tears, I don't want to know you, you must be a bad person.

Now, on the other hand, this book also made me want to become a dope fiend. Just a little bit, you know. Imagine I could swap all these conflicting desires and needs I have for just one need and desire - to get that blast. Just that. No other emotional and material needs. No need to find love or a more fulfilling job or start family or make more money, just get a blast. A simple goal, achievable on a daily basis. Yeah, fucks you up good in the end, but it doesn't matter because what matters is to get a blast. This is a very simple code: get a blast and never say never because you never know how far you will go to get a blast.

Oh God, this book was great. Can David Simon go and live somewhere else for a year and write me another one like that? That's all I want for Christmas, thank you. The language was beautiful and literary, and full of slang at the same time and somehow it didn't sound like your dad trying to be hip. You might listen to a hundred rap songs, and you won't have a clue. You can watch all the 'urban movies' you can download in the whole wide internet and you still won't understand. Read this book and you might just begin to have an idea.

This book deserves a song in the review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saRt2V...(less)

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Mar 13, 2008 C.E. rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of "The Wire", people interested in an honest, unflinching portrait of the drug world

Shelves: my-all-time-favorite-books

Books don't get much more powerful or moving than this.

The premise is simple--Baltimore Sun reporter Simon (who's lately been earning acclaim as the driving force behind HBO's "The Wire" which takes place in the same area)and Ed Burns spent a year living on or around one of the busiest drug markets in Baltimore and reports what he learned. In doing so, he tells the stories of the people who inhabit this world: street pushers, kids trying (although often not that hard) to stay straight and the p...more Books don't get much more powerful or moving than this.

The premise is simple--Baltimore Sun reporter Simon (who's lately been earning acclaim as the driving force behind HBO's "The Wire" which takes place in the same area)and Ed Burns spent a year living on or around one of the busiest drug markets in Baltimore and reports what he learned. In doing so, he tells the stories of the people who inhabit this world: street pushers, kids trying (although often not that hard) to stay straight and the parents who worry about them, when they're not too busy trying to score their next fix. The stories are harrowing--from people who spend their days cashing in scrap metal for cash to get hooked up, to families sharing one small bedroom in a shooting gallery. Pretty much everybody is hoping for a change in fortunes, but the book offers few happy endings. In spite of this, its a fascinating glimpse of a world where most of Simon's readers will never go.

The narrative is occasionally broken up by Simon and Burns' musings about the war on drugs. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, its hard to disagree with Simon's belief that the war has failed, at least in his little corner of the world. There's a particularly powerful passage near the end where Simon flat out shatters the Horatio Alger myths that many middle-class suburbanites cling to, particularly the idea that should they find themselves in that situation, they'd simply apply a little Puritan gumption and work their way out their unfortunate circumstances. In the end, he doesn't offer any solutions and precious little hope.

Yet, the people who live there are more than mindless junkies. They're human, with hopes and dreams and stories to tell. Perhaps Simon's greatest achievement is the way in which he employs his sharp eye and powers of observation to paint a wholly three-dimensional and, given the circumstances, refreshingly non-judgmental picture of a community in deep decline.

In the end, its an amazing powerful read, one that will leave readers deeply affected and likely having shed at least a couple of tears along the way. (less)

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Mar 23, 2011 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 4 minute warning

Recommended to Mariel by: house of cards

Shelves: rubber-ring

Ed Burns and David Simon's The Corner gave me a lot to think about. I really could not stop living in it, or talking about it to anyone who would pretend to listen to me (life before I wrote reviews on goodreads).
Their journalistic approach of living with their subjects (in no way are the people within this account "subjects". I'm not good with word choices) for a year and being able to not leave their own footprint in was fascinating to me, for one thing. Not that it isn't hard to read about i...more Ed Burns and David Simon's The Corner gave me a lot to think about. I really could not stop living in it, or talking about it to anyone who would pretend to listen to me (life before I wrote reviews on goodreads).
Their journalistic approach of living with their subjects (in no way are the people within this account "subjects". I'm not good with word choices) for a year and being able to not leave their own footprint in was fascinating to me, for one thing. Not that it isn't hard to read about it. Well, it's always hard, I can make myself sick thinking about something like prison and trying to think of anything that could possibly help (I'm not that smart. Probably no one is). Yet, they don't pretend that they are not there. Their prescence is noted in the prose in what I thought was a different idea in storytelling. Not a documentary style, nor quite the omniprescent narrator either. It felt, to me, like they were the reader along with me finding it all so damned hard. I can't think of another book that made me feel that way. (The other book with a unique journalistic style that still felt oh so immediate to me was Nicolas Gage's Eleni, another favorite of mine.) I have the HBO tv movie version on dvd but have not yet seen it. The show employs a mockumentary style. I'm not keen on losing that special storytelling feel that their book had, to be honest.

The background history of Baltimore and how the situation got to be that fucked up... Yes, quite a lot to think about. For example, this book supposes that the cheap price of cocaine was an extenuating circumstance in the rise of the drug problem in inner cities. That the families did not need the men as much (who would and did already buy heroin), and it was the cheap price of coke leading the women off the path as well was when the shit really hit the fan... I'd never thought about it from that stand point. Money, of course, is another (as Lester says on The Wire, follow the money trail). Kids started running drugs because they wouldn't have to do life sentences. Kids running the drug business on a fast food business level. Like Lord of the Flies for street violence, methinks. Kids raising kids and the kid breadwinners are dealers. When money moved out of the neighborhood (I'm out of shitty metaphors [for now]), the strings keeping it together went out. It goes back further than that. The Corner works as a great history book too. Why which community moved there, jobs... nothing happened that wasn't building up from every other day before it. The personal lives and motivations are the same. Except they are flesh and blood and one can hope (pray) that every other day before isn't how it is always going to be.

The people are some I won't soon forget. Make no mistake, no matter at which lowest point they may be in, it is still always make it or break it time. The Corner ends on a lowest note. Fans of The Wire might recognize DeAndre as Brother Mouzon's assistant (the sadsack one who forgot his "Harper's Bazaar" magazine). Tyreeka appeared as an employee of the community college that Stringer Bell attended for his business courses. (I'm impressed how Ed Burns keeps in contact. Wire fans also know that he still talked to people whom he put away in prison for twenty years. It is because he actually gives a damn about his subjects, something that won't surprise anyone who knows his work.) It can go up and down again. Feeling why you really, really don't want it to is the point of reading a book like this one. The stakes were there no matter how it goes down. The soul, the heart (we're all going to die anyway so the ending can't be the point)... Gary's story is one of the most heartbreaking for me. That he had that mind and gave it all away to drugs. That he was aware of what he gave away and that wrong make it or break it choice happened repeatedly. There's an old man in my town who was not always retarded. He became mentally challenged after an attack. He remembers what it was like from before. That's what they make me think of, when they continue to choose this amputated life (and that goes for anything better they could be missing). I so wish it would get spontaneous and end differently for him. I can't bear it for anyone. I know what they are missing.

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Apr 08, 2008 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Don't follow this link if you plan to read the book & haven't, but I was pleasantly surprised after I searched for one of the characters online this morning...
A bizarre redemption tale.
The Corner is written in documentary form, with apparently 75-80% of the content being observed events in the lives of these West Baltimore residents. The focus of the books is more on the drug users than the drug sellers, which makes sense as I'm sure there aren't too many dealers out there looking to be foll...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-read, african-american, lives-of-people, mental-health, name-yer-poison, non-fiction, true-crime, sociology, baltimore

A very heavy book--figuratively and literally. At over 500 pages, I did have a little trouble with the length--I wasn't always compelled to pick it up and read more, given I was going to read about more hardship, disappointment, and misery. However, I understand why the authors wanted to give a year-in-the-life of the people they wrote about--it gives a fuller spectrum of their day-to-day lives. For those of us outside "the corner" life, this book gives a lot of intimate and personal details abo...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Julia rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

This is quite possibly one of the best books I've read! Ed Burns and David Simon undertake a journalistic approach to the traditionally anthropological method of ethnography- the descriptive documentation of a living culture. The result of over a year of living among and gaining the trust of individuals within the culture is an amazingly engrossing story of the year-in-the-life of the residents around an open-air drug market on Baltimore's west side.

Focusing on a core of approximately 10 indivi...more

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Dec 21, 2012 AticoLibros rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: principal

Hay muchas razones para leer "La esquina", de David Simon y Ed Burns. Ahí van dos: es un ejercicio de periodismo narrativo ejemplar, por honesto, rico y ambicioso, en un tiempo en el que el trabajo de contar historias reales ya no es como lo conocimos; y dos, retrata la otra cara de América, el gueto, busca explicaciones e intuye por qué fracasan todas las políticas para erradicar la droga y la pobreza. La esquina es un horizonte, siempre va a estar ahí, en cualquier parte del mundo. (La Tribuna...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, favorites

I don't know what to say about this book. It was stunning, and heartbreaking, and funny, and sad, and terrifying, and painful, and moving, and so much more. I got so absorbed in the stories of these neighborhood kids and their families that I was scared to read the epilogue because I didn't want to find out--though I knew I would--that some of them hadn't made it, that they'd died or fallen to the crime or the drugs that they swore they'd stay away from. And I was saddened, too, to see that (vie ...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Jeb rated it 5 of 5 stars

As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the most important books published in the last twenty years. David Simon and Ed Burns's wonderful book tackles life in the inner city, both on the macro and micro levels, looking at not only the crushing, systemic problems, but the fleeting joys -- and how far some people will go to recreate those joys. Centering mostly on the McCullough family, The Corner also features a rich cast of supporting characters, whose lives and stories are just as interesting a...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oh good grief, is this ever a depressing book?

As we all know, there's drug dealing on the streets of most major (and many minor) cities in America. This book watches what happens in one such "drug market" in the mid-1990s, and the impact living in that society has on the people living there.

I found the book beyond depressing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, reading about seemingly nice people (and some iffier ones) being brought low by drugs isn't fun, I don't think, if you've got any ability t...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Aaron Arnold rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, favorites, read-in-2011

I had to wait a few days after finishing this book to write anything about it, because it didn't seem like any part of my reaction really did it justice, or would be worthy enough to record without cheapening the book. It's unquestionably one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time, and knowing that it's nonfiction - that all these people really did exist and really did do the things it describes - makes me pause. Very few books make me think about my own relationship to the text to...more I had to wait a few days after finishing this book to write anything about it, because it didn't seem like any part of my reaction really did it justice, or would be worthy enough to record without cheapening the book. It's unquestionably one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time, and knowing that it's nonfiction - that all these people really did exist and really did do the things it describes - makes me pause. Very few books make me think about my own relationship to the text to the extent that The Corner did. Maybe it's because it's about real life, that Baltimore and so many other inner cities are really suffering in this way in my own country right now that makes it hit so much harder than, say, the equivalent suffering in a Zola novel. While I think America is a great place to live and has towering advantages over many other countries in many things, I think its greatest failing, at heart, is a willingness to simply look the other way at real human suffering if caring about it would cost money. The quote from Kafka that opens up the book, which also later made an appearance in season 5 of Simon's TV series The Wire - "You can hold back from the suffering of the world. You have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided." - sums up what I want to say about my personal and our collective attitude towards the corner perfectly. I'm not exactly sure what drives David Simon to delve so deeply into the lives of these people and all the others he's featured on his shows or in his books; he'd probably say that, contra the Kafka quote, holding back is the one thing he can't do. He immersed himself in the lives of Ella, Fran, Gary, DeAndre, and the many other people with smaller roles for well over a year, connecting their joys and heartbreaks, their own pieces of the "suffering of the world", into an immensely affecting work for public consumption. If you've seen The Wire then all this will be very familiar, but it's worth looking at this material through a new medium, particularly because its diligent, searching explorations of the individual people's lives is much more focused on the ground-level day-to-day struggles to stay clean or get a new fix or get a job or keep a job than the panoramic sweep of the show. I'm not sure which of the main characters has the most painful story, but each was gripping. Periodically Simon will interrupt the narrative to go into extended rants on how exactly we've gotten ourselves trapped in this endless drug war and cycle of poverty. This book was written in the early 90s before the decrease in crime rates, but his moving analyses of the vicious logic of drug use and drug crime remain perfectly relevant, especially in a city like Baltimore. The real question for me is: after reading an amazing work like this, what am I going to do about it? I can continue not being a heroin addict, but I don't know what I can do about the nightmare vortex portrayed here. The corner has an internal logic all its own, and I'm not sure that there's much I can do about it other than to support the end of this pointless Reaganeering that has hollowed out our cities and ruined millions of lives. Like Simon said through The Wire, you can't call it a war on drugs - wars end. The challenge that our society faces is how to admit defeat and begin the long, painful process of making sure that the kind of life pictured here becomes just fiction again. Any ideas?(less)

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Dec 09, 2011 Rita marked it as to-read

Kinga highly recommends:

"The Corner is rooted in human desire - crude and certain and immediate. And the hard truth is that all the law enforcement in the world can't mess with desire."

I have this flaw in my character that I am extremely judgmental. I try to fight it. I try to tell myself I don't know the circumstances. I don't know the whole picture. But no matter how hard I try, there is always that voice in my head that keeps saying "why can't people just get their shit together". You know,...more Kinga highly recommends:

"The Corner is rooted in human desire - crude and certain and immediate. And the hard truth is that all the law enforcement in the world can't mess with desire."

I have this flaw in my character that I am extremely judgmental. I try to fight it. I try to tell myself I don't know the circumstances. I don't know the whole picture. But no matter how hard I try, there is always that voice in my head that keeps saying "why can't people just get their shit together". You know, go get a job, stop selling drugs, leave that abusive relationship, don't join a gang, don't do drugs. Just say 'no', right?

I will tell you this - no one has managed to do more for my personal improvement than David Simon and Ed Burns with this book of theirs. I can almost feel I am a better person now. 'The Corner' is a documentary of one year of the Corner of West Fayette and Monroe in West Baltimore. People getting high, people selling drugs, people getting in trouble, people shooting each other, kids having kids - you know the statistics. Now, Simon and Burns show you the people behind the statistics. They don't patronize or infantilize their subjects. They humanize them. They tell you like it is, they don't try to justify them, or blame everything on the system.

This is not an easy read because the portraits of Fran, DeAndre, Gary, Blue or Fat Curt hit a little close to home. Well, of course I like to think that if I were born in the ghetto I wouldn't let that happen to me, I would just work hard, and try hard, and I wouldn't get in trouble.

Because I am so strong-willed, right? I can't fucking manage two days without chocolate but I would make it out the ghetto.

As the authors say: "Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkly assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now possess."

If this book doesn't bring you close to tears, I don't want to know you, you must be a bad person.

Now, on the other hand, this book made me want to become a dope fiend. Just a little bit, you know.
Imagine I could swap all these conflicting desires and needs I have for just one need and desire - to get that blast. Just that. No other emotional and material needs. No need to find love or a more fulfilling job or start family or make more money, just get a blast. A simple goal, achievable on a daily basis. Yeah, fucks you up good in the end, but it doesn't matter because what matters is to get a blast. This is a very simple code: get a blast and never say never because you never know how far you will go to get a blast.

Oh God, this book was great. Can David Simon go and live somewhere else for a year and write me another one like that? That's all I want for Christmas, thank you. The language was beautiful and literary, and full of slang at the same time and somehow it didn't sound like your dad trying to be hip. You might watch listen to a hundred rap songs, and you won't have a clue. You can watch all the 'urban movies' you can download in the whole wide internet and you still won't understand. Read this book and you might just begin to have an idea. (less)

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Apr 21, 2010 Todd rated it 5 of 5 stars

Two writers spend a year hanging out and observing a West Baltimore neighborhood that is almost completely given over to open-air drug markets. It's sort of an urban "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" with fewer linking verbs.

One of the writers is an ex-cop schoolteacher named Ed Burns, and the other is David Simon, writer of the excellent Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and creator of The Wire. In a lot of ways The Corner is the flip side of Homicide, showing Baltimore from the point of vie...more Two writers spend a year hanging out and observing a West Baltimore neighborhood that is almost completely given over to open-air drug markets. It's sort of an urban "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" with fewer linking verbs.

One of the writers is an ex-cop schoolteacher named Ed Burns, and the other is David Simon, writer of the excellent Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and creator of The Wire. In a lot of ways The Corner is the flip side of Homicide, showing Baltimore from the point of view of the street rather than the detectives.

This book allowed me to enter and understand a world completely foreign to my middle class suburban upbringing and set of values. However, by the end I felt proud of a mom for stealing only $60 from her drug dealing son's bankroll to buy her daily blast.

It shows what a horrifying mess the urban poor live in and how America has absolutely no use for these people, even if they could escape the drug and gangster culture that is all they have ever known. My favorite passage is a sarcastic answer to the myth that more personal responsibility is the answer:

If it was our fathers firing dope and our mothers smoking coke, we'd pull ourselves past it. We'd raise ourselves, discipline ourselves, teach ourselves the essentials of self-denial and delayed gratification that no one in our universe ever demonstrated. And if home was the rear room of some rancid, three-story shooting gallery, we'd rise above that, too. We'd shuffle up the stairs past nodding fiends and sullen dealers, shut the bedroom door, turn off the television, and do our schoolwork. Algebra amid the stench of burning rock; American history between police raids. And if there was no food on the table, we're certain we could deal with that. We'd lie about our age to cut taters and spill grease and sling fries at the sub shop for five-and-change-an-hour ... Come payday we wouldn't blow that minimum-wage check on Nikes or Fila sweat suits, or Friday night movies at Harbor Park with the neighborhood girls. No f---ing way, brother, because we pulled self-esteem out of a dark hole somewhere and damned if our every desire isn't absolutely in check.

So much for the conservative view. Fortunately there is plenty to offend liberals too like the description of welfare as a dirty bribe akin to foreign aid to dictators, the public school policy of "social promotion" as a complete joke, and the rehab centers as a nice vacation from the constant hustling of the corner.

Definitely recommended. Be sure to look up the addresses on Google Maps street view for the full effect.

[I almost forgot to mention: I was surprised when I realized that I had visited this same neighborhood in the mid-nineties, a few years after the events of this book take place. On a business trip I took a quick detour to visit the H.L. Mencken House, two blocks away from one of the main character's drug corners and the scene of a gun battle. It's strange to think that I was walking up and down Hollins St. looking for the Sage of Baltimore's house wearing my dorky business casual clothes and carrying my laptop bag. I mentioned this to an in-law who is a foster parents for kids like the ones in this book, and he laughed and said, "No offense but you're pretty white -- even for a white guy. That wasn't too smart."]
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May 26, 2009 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is just as enthrallingly written as the other David Simon book I've read, Homicide, but instead of writing about heroes (as flawed as any are), this book covers what must be counted among the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore, and the people who live in it. Simon takes great pains to render a sympathetic but honest portrait of the people he describes, and the rise and fall of characters' hopes for a better life is a genuine source of suspense. And it's not a complete downer of a tale, either...more This is just as enthrallingly written as the other David Simon book I've read, Homicide, but instead of writing about heroes (as flawed as any are), this book covers what must be counted among the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore, and the people who live in it. Simon takes great pains to render a sympathetic but honest portrait of the people he describes, and the rise and fall of characters' hopes for a better life is a genuine source of suspense. And it's not a complete downer of a tale, either; although many, many of the people described in the book meet bad ends in the epilogue several years later, there are still bright spots.

I found the interconnections between characters fascinating in the book -- there are many instances where a minor character in one person's story gains a narrative unto him or herself, or two people witness the same events but have a different take on them. I love especially that the authors left these connections implicit, as a small puzzle to work out, almost.

The biggest gamble of the book is the editorial commentary the authors weave into the book. I think it works, overall, but it does chip away a little at the credibility of the tale when the writers are both reporting events with a more-or-less objective point of view and then using that reportage as implicit evidence to prove their point. I don't think it's a huge problem for the text, but it did nag at me as I read.

At the same time, one of the most devastating parts of the book is found in this pairing of commentary and reporting, where we're first told how the neighborhood culture deals with parenting, and then witness that exact pattern play itself out in real life, beat for beat.

The lesson I am taking from this book is that life is hard work, through and through, and easy, seductive choices abound -- but they all lead in terrible directions. The only real difference between my (middle-class, comfortable) life and those of the characters' is that if I screw up, there are so many safety nets I can call on. They have almost none. But as for politics? Simon and Burns make a convincing case that our current approach to poverty is a complete disgrace -- but I have no idea what the right approach would be, based on what I've read.(less)

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Sep 09, 2011 Michael Rubin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

This is a complex book. I picked it up since I read an article by David Simon on how his tv shows offer no nuance like his books do. I was curious how much more his books could offer. They offer a lot.

The corner is a non fiction account. The authors describe it as a work of journalism. They sat around a bad neighborhood in Baltimore and watched the people as they tried to understand the ecosystem. The book is successful at showing how trapped and how little choice many of the residents have. It...more

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May 29, 2010 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have the unique perspective of having lived on "The Corner" for a year, and in the neighborhood for two more. My review might be biased because I don't have the luxury of distancing myself from the characters or saying "such and such was probably embellished for dramatic flair."

The characters in The Corner are real people struggling to live "normal" lives in the face of circumstances that 99% of us would consider absolutely unacceptable. Burns and Simon stay with each character long enough to...more

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Apr 13, 2010 Sarah Szurpicki rated it 4 of 5 stars

A sad and true piece of journalism, worth reading for the insight, though not exactly a page-turner. By the guys who brought you "The Wire," so the expectations of brutal realism are high, and met. This focuses, instead of on the dealers and cops, on the dope fiends who make it all possible. The book manages to escape being overly sympathetic towards the flawed humans who populate this neighborhood, while slowly building a case for how inevitably trapped most of them are. I could have done witho...more

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May 31, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Of a piece with The Wire and Homicide, The Corner examines the pathology of the crumbling inner-city in Baltimore, here standing in for Everytown, USA. Simon and Burns report on a year's worth of every day minutiae of a host of real-life drug dealers, their customers, and beleaguered "homeowners" in a neighborhood at the ultimate state of decay. The story alternates with impassioned arguments on the government's War on Drugs, the efficacy of welfare, and how genuinely hard it is to leave the 'ho...more

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Apr 07, 2010 Jean Marie Davis rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sociology, non-fict, crim

If I learned anything from this book it's that drug abuse is booooring. Seriously. It's like going to a party sober. It's no fun and all your friends act like assholes. Boring.

My main concerns with this book were thematic and so ingrained within the structure that I had difficultly overlooking them. For starters, it's too long. There was no need for this book to prattle on for over 500 pages. Several passages that went on for pages about the boys under-16 basketball team. One passage would've s...more If I learned anything from this book it's that drug abuse is booooring. Seriously. It's like going to a party sober. It's no fun and all your friends act like assholes. Boring.

My main concerns with this book were thematic and so ingrained within the structure that I had difficultly overlooking them. For starters, it's too long. There was no need for this book to prattle on for over 500 pages. Several passages that went on for pages about the boys under-16 basketball team. One passage would've sufficed and used as a reference later. But several passages repeatedly about something as banal as pick-up basketball games could've been succinct and concise.

I also felt as if the author read maybe 1 or 2 books on sociology and proceeded to makes these grand statements about the status of social problems in inner-city America. Whether or not the writer was qualified to do this remains to be seen but on the pages of this book, he fell short. I need grand statements about the status of American poverty to be backed by research, not anecdotal evidence based on a middle class white guy's 1 year in the ghetto.

I would've liked to see this book be more. The writer went a certain way and centered his book on a family and the people that satellite around them. A more investigative approach, rather than a passive one, outlining drug addiction and poverty in Baltimore, I think, could've made for a richer read. The business of drugs, the cycles of addiction, and the ways in which those involved view themselves, I think, would've added depth to this book and justified a 500 page social statement.

If this book had gone one way or another I would've been fine. On the one hand, a straight-up ethnographic study (field research-like) would've sufficed. A greater statement on the condition of poverty in inner-city Baltimore would've sufficed. But the blend was inconsistent. At best this book is a passive glimpse at life in inner-city poverty and drug addiction. At worst it's armchair sociology written by a verbose journalist. (less)

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Nov 06, 2012 Curtis Marx rated it 5 of 5 stars

"These [people] I write of are human beings, living in this world, innocent of such twistings as these which are taking place over their heads; and that they were dwelt among, investigated, spied on, revered and loved by other quite monstrously alien human beings, in the employment of others still more alien; and that they are now being looked into by still others, who have picked up their living as casually as if it were a book..."

I cannot find a more fitting way to describe this book than the...more "These [people] I write of are human beings, living in this world, innocent of such twistings as these which are taking place over their heads; and that they were dwelt among, investigated, spied on, revered and loved by other quite monstrously alien human beings, in the employment of others still more alien; and that they are now being looked into by still others, who have picked up their living as casually as if it were a book..."

I cannot find a more fitting way to describe this book than the closing statement by Simon and Burns in "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood." A book that took four years of meticulous journalism to write, it tells the story of a handful of victims living amongst the long forgotten alleyways and condemned rowhouses of West Baltimore. At the center of it all is a multi-generational examination of the McCullough family--beginning with grandfather W.M.'s flee from a life of bondage as a sharecropper in the South to the manufacturing jobs of Baltimore, to the subsequent white flight and decline of black neighborhoods as his son Gary attempts to leave the troubled city only to be taken down by the burgeoning coke and heroin trade he begins to shoot deep into his veins. It continues to the present day (which is the focus of the 500+ pages), with Gary's estranged son DeAndre, who is the first of the family to be born straight into the underclass of Monroe and Fayette Street, forced to navigate the long forgotten corners alone; his mother and father are too occupied looking for their next blast to properly raise a child. They try as hard as they can, but we see time and again that they are nothing more than cursory characters in DeAndre's life. Instead, as a 14 year man he must make the decision between following the all encompassing world of the corner, or to choose instead the near insurmountable path of escaping the ghetto and avoid following the footsteps of his parents.

There is much more to this book than just the McCullough family, but it would be impossible to touch on it all. Suffice to say, the most difficult aspect is in the realization that all these people are real, and their stories are not exaggerations. This is not a work of fiction, and it is sometimes hard to believe when reading about so many people lost and buried among the rubble of a decaying American dream. It is often shocking when you must remind yourself that this has all happened, and is not the work of wildly imaginative authors. More sobering is the hard truth this is still happening today, and yet we will conveniently put "The Corner" on the shelf after finishing, and too easily forget its existence.(less)

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Mar 01, 2013 Fraser rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read many a book on drugs and addiction, but nothing quite like this.

This is written in a narrative story-telling style by the two authors who have somehow managed to 'integrate' and live right next to their subjects and studied them in some detail. Its hard to believe just how accepted these 'outsiders' must have become in order to get to this level of detail of personal stories, family histories and the day to day machinations of the 'corner'.

The book takes place across a small swathe...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Darcy McLaughlin rated it 5 of 5 stars

""We can't stop it. Not with all the lawyers, guns, and money in the world. Not with guilt or morality or righteous indignation. Not with crime summits, or task forces, or committees."

This is the bleak beginning of The Corner's second chapter, a living document about West Baltimore's drug trade and the lives affected by it. Edward Burns and David Simon are out for one thing, to illustrate just how badly the "war on drugs" has gotten, and how it has become a seemingly insurmountable problem. Thin...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved The Wire, I loved David Simon’s first book Homicide, and I love this. If you’re a fan of either, this is more of the same – high quality, 100% true, a cutting, piercing look at the problems effecting Baltimore, but in many ways a microcosm of our country’s most pressing needs, conflicts that effect us all.

It is a long read, and at times it can get a bit repetitive; but that is also the nature of the problem that he is covering here: drug addiction. The stories he tells of his subjects se...more I loved The Wire, I loved David Simon’s first book Homicide, and I love this. If you’re a fan of either, this is more of the same – high quality, 100% true, a cutting, piercing look at the problems effecting Baltimore, but in many ways a microcosm of our country’s most pressing needs, conflicts that effect us all.

It is a long read, and at times it can get a bit repetitive; but that is also the nature of the problem that he is covering here: drug addiction. The stories he tells of his subjects seem to follow a cyclical pattern, that of decent, seemingly hitting bottom, promising to change, being unable to pull away, backsliding, finally deciding to go to rehab, recovering and taking a small step, backsliding, etc. There were many nights that I felt like I sat down and read for an hour and half and only made it through 15-20 pages, but it’s so compelling that I was continually drawn to it, to see what would become of these characters. Like The Wire, you have no idea if a character will regress, survive, overcome, struggle, live, or die. You root for the human heart, and it’s the same human heart that makes you cry.

With all of the country-wide problems that Simon tackles here, he never loses the humanity in these individual struggles. His portrayal is heartfelt and sympathetic, but it’s also completely accurate, sparing nothing, sugar-coating nothing. He tells the stories of each of his subjects, but is also able to juxtapose some thoughtful commentary throughout without ever sounding like he’s taking sides, tossing judgments, or playing politics, and that’s exactly what this book does best – takes the problems, the debates, the crisis, and lays it all out, from all sides. He’ll explain the back history with the migration of the southern blacks to the northern factories, the rise of the rowhouse, the introduction of heroin in the 60s, the explosion of cocaine in the 80s, and the innovation of crack, seamlessly fitting it all together in such a way that what is happening almost makes sense … or at least reality is more clearly seen. He offers passages that touch on the rise of teen pregnancy, the abuse of the welfare system, the faulty “tough on crime” stance that politicians think they can take, the rise of petty crime and the PD’s incapability to slow it, the unsolvable murders. All of these issues are examined with insightful analysis, witnessed from a first-hand viewing, not simply lobbed from some state afar, by someone with no knowledge at all about what it’s like to grow up in the inner city, with no opportunities or expectations, where everyone you know skips school to deal heroin, where teen pregnancy isn’t viewed as a negative thing when the average life expectancy for a corner boy is 18, where the phrase “go out and get a job, work, I did” means nothing to someone with no support structure, no education, no view of society other than the corner in front of you because this “society” we so casually refer to has given up and abandoned you, all your people, your city, and turned its back on everyone and everything that exists to you. There were a number of 13-page sections that I thought about copying and mailing to certain individuals that claim to “deserve everything they have” when confronted with such political issues as unemployment, welfare, healthcare, disability, and taxes in general. In short, Simon gives an incredible argument for these people without coming across like an angry John Stewart, an annoyed Bill Mahar, or a fed-up Ryan Sherman – it’s more than a couple of sentences that try to argue and win a point; it’s a well-documented scene, a well-researched situation that portrays exactly what one of the aforementioned people are trying to get at but don’t have the time and/or means to say. You see these people, these struggles, and you can’t help but feel for them, even as you see them struggle with rehab, unable to walk away; because like Fran finds when she first walks away: to what is she walking away to? There’s nothing there for her but a reminder of why she ran away and towards drugs in the first place.

This is a really thought-provoking read, intelligent, cutting, unrelenting read, but enjoyable in that “now I get it” type of way watching The Wire is. It’s not easy. But it’s worth it. It stays with you, as it should, like the real world problems deserve to, not simply to be cast aside after a 10 second read of an internet story briefly mentioning the crime rate in a major city rising before you click to check your fantasy stats. The problem, as Simon so clearly states, however, is that to the people who will read this book, Simon is preaching to the choir; the people who need convincing will never pick it up, because they are those that have already turned their back on these populations in West Baltimore, New York, South Central, South Chicago, Detroit.
(less)

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Jan 09, 2010 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who love good documentaries

Recommended to Karen by: Justin Woods & Caitlin Gray

Reading The Corner I felt a powerful desire to reconnect with those in my life whose lives had some of the same elements of the lives in this book. I’ve spent a lot of time with the book in my lap, not reading, just reminiscing about certain people and places. I am unnerved by it, this nostalgia for... what? Proximity to pain, poverty, violence, racism, addiction, and hopelessness? Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t feel like “helping.” Starting in junior high the social-worky desire to help people...more

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Dec 29, 2007 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read this because I had recently gotten hooked on the Wire. Working in Baltimore makes the story seem that much more real. Its sad we live in times where there is so much prosperity yet people still resort to drugs, crime, more drugs, having babies. It doesn't have to be this way does it?

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Jul 27, 2012 A. Gamble rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Part of the transformative power of literature is the ability for a work to cause a person to empathize with another with whom they would normally not interact. A new perspective is gained; another person, different from the reader, is seen as equally human. This book does that. Through the diligent reporting of an established journalist and a former detective, now public school teacher, The Corner immerses its readers in a world often dismissed. Rather than seeing a man as a junkie or a thief,...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Luke Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was expecting this book to be powerful, but I was still unprepared for it. It's hard for me to say it was the best book I've ever read; I don't think such superficial comparisons are a fair way to treat any book.

What I can say is that more than once I found myself on the subway reading the book and fighting (unsuccessfully) to hold back tears so as not to make a spectacle of myself in public. Those episodes were nothing compared to my outpouring of emotion upon finishing it, however, at home...more I was expecting this book to be powerful, but I was still unprepared for it. It's hard for me to say it was the best book I've ever read; I don't think such superficial comparisons are a fair way to treat any book.

What I can say is that more than once I found myself on the subway reading the book and fighting (unsuccessfully) to hold back tears so as not to make a spectacle of myself in public. Those episodes were nothing compared to my outpouring of emotion upon finishing it, however, at home thankfully.

It was not always because of the epic devastation the book depicts, though it is impossible not to be affected by that. Much of my reaction came from the dramatic peaks and valleys, the crushing hopelessness juxtaposed with the glimmers of possibility, of characters clawing their way toward a life not defined by drug-fueled mayhem and desperation only to be beaten back down by their predictable circumstances.

It follows mainly a family of drug addicts living on the streets of Baltimore in a journalistic study of a year in the ghetto (yes, nonfiction). Through the telling of these tales of these people we would otherwise not tolerate within a hundred yards of us, we see small indications that these fiends and dealers, rugged street veterans and dewy-eyed youngsters, crave something better, something beyond their parallel universe confined within a few city blocks -- but it's just out of reach.

David Simon, as he tends to (see season five of The Wire), can get a little preachy at times, ranting about the failings of the system and the hopeless cycle that keeps so many people in every city in America trapped in squalor with nowhere to turn but dope. But it's wholly forgivable, even cathartic in this book. We need someone on a soapbox, someone who has witnessed this darkness first hand to shed light on it for the rest of us who might otherwise just turn away in disgust.

It is an incredible piece of journalism and an incredible glimpse into the human condition, one I could not recommend more highly. Many have said "if you like The Wire you'll love The Corner", and it's true. But I would say, if you have even a passing interest in the fundamental struggles of humanity, you need to read this book.(less)

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Jan 06, 2009 Eileen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Simon and Burns follow several people who live, work, and find ways to get by in one of Baltimore's open air drug markets. Here, women are more present than in their later work on 'The Wire.'

Throwing the vast, and vastly damaging and futile hypocrisy of the so-called war on drugs into relief, they write "Here on Fayette, every fiend and tout and runner understands; they know with a certainty to rival the faith of any religion that no one will miss his daily blast. Against that, there will be no...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Rosemary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Powerful story of the drug corners in Baltimore, published in 1997, based on a year in the west Baltimore outdoor drug markets in Franklin Square with DeAndre McCullough as the central character, along with his parents, Fran Boyd and Gary McCullough and his friends and neighbors. I discovered this book after reading DeAndre's obituary in the NYT on August 1, 2012; it was the basis of a TV miniseries as well as the HBO series, "The Wire". Told through the seasons of the year, of the ups and downs...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Marguerite rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: soc-science-politics, bailed-out

I could only make it to page 138 (of 543) of this bad boy. There is some tenacious reporting here. The authors devoted an impressive amount of time to laying the groundwork and observing the people, events and landscape. But, that doesn't automatically make for stellar journalism.

Good reporters take note of the sights, sounds and smells of a scene. They also exercise judgment when unloading their notebooks. This book needed an editor. The amount of detail is tedious. There's a great story to be...more

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About David Simon

David Simon is a journalist and writer best known for his nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and its television dramatization Homicide: Life on the Street, which David Simon also produced and wrote for.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

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Quotes from The Corner

“That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound.

It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us.

Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.

Why? The truth is plain:

We were not born to be niggers.” — 4 people liked it

“The three-story derelict is home to Smitty, Gale, and Gale's baby - a nuclear family nested on the corner - and Ella is accustomed to seeing them on the front steps, waiting for redemption or a cool breeze from the harbor, neither of which seems particularly likely.” — 2 people liked it

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The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

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