The Setting is Personal by Danette Vigilante
It might come as no surprise that my two books, The Trouble with Half a Moon and Saving Baby Doe, take place in a public housing project since I grew up in one. It feels a tiny bit like cheating, but I had my reasons.
Sometimes growing up in public housing marks you as somehow being “less than” by society. Outside of my neighborhood, this plagued me, but at home, amongst my friends and neighbors, none of that existed. I was surrounded by a village made up of good, hard working people who cared not only for their own families, but for their neighbors as well.
Does this mean I lived in a perfect world? Not at all and when I began writing, I knew I needed to show what living in public housing is really like. The truth? It’s absolutely no different than living in any other neighborhood— including the “bad” and the good.
Sometimes growing up in public housing marks you as somehow being “less than” by society. Outside of my neighborhood, this plagued me, but at home, amongst my friends and neighbors, none of that existed. I was surrounded by a village made up of good, hard working people who cared not only for their own families, but for their neighbors as well.
Does this mean I lived in a perfect world? Not at all and when I began writing, I knew I needed to show what living in public housing is really like. The truth? It’s absolutely no different than living in any other neighborhood— including the “bad” and the good.
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