THE ADDRESS BOOK

WHAT OUR STREET ADDRESSES REVEAL ABOUT IDENTITY, RACE, WEALTH AND POWER

DEIDRE MASK

Profile, 332pp, £16.99

American journalist Deirdre Mask wonders what our street names say about us, our times and our history. In a somewhat confusing paragraph, Sarah Vowell in the New York Times, praised her range. ‘Structurally, narrative nonfiction tends to work either like a freight train (progressing in a straight line from Point A to Point B) or like a horseback rider (jumping fences to gallop across fields of unwieldy facts); count Mask among the horsy set. The Address

Book is her first book, and she is already a master at shoehorning in fascinating yet barely germane detours just for kicks.’

PD Smith, in the Guardian, noted that ‘most households in the world don’t have street addresses’ and enjoyed Mask’s forays through West Virginia where ‘people navigate in creative ways. Directions are delivered in paragraphs.’ Frances Wilson in the Telegraph also enjoyed the diversions ‘between potted histories of cholera, the French Revolution and Japanese script’, observing that ‘while street names can celebrate and instil collective memory they are also a form of propaganda. Propaganda relies on simple messages and “what message”, Mask asks, “is more simple than a street-name?”’

In the Sunday Times, Andrew Holgate had his eyes opened: ‘Read Mask’s fascinating deep dive into the world of Mill Lane and Martin Luther King Street and you will realise how important these geographical markers are, how pregnant with meaning, and what a difference they make to everything from the proper functioning of society to questions of wealth, poverty and democracy.’