San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Books: Debut novel centers on San Francisco’s unhoused.
In her debut novel, “At the Edge of the Haight,” San Francisco writer Katherine Seligman tells the story of Maddy Donaldo, a 20yearold woman who lives in an overlooked corner of Golden Gate Park with her dog, Root, and a group of friends she’s met around the Haight. When Maddy and Root stumble across a young murder victim and a menacing man at the scene of the crime, Maddy bolts, horrified by both the gruesomeness of the murder and a fear that she’ll never again know safety, as the man she associates with the murder knows where to find her.
The novel explores how Maddy’s life in San Francisco is altered by the murder in the park. As the police bring her in for questioning and the victim’s parents, Dave and Marva, enlist Maddy’s help in finding out what happened to their son, Maddy confronts her past — her childhood in Los Angeles, her absent father, her mentally ill mother and the life she fled when she came to San Francisco.
One of the largest questions in the book is that of how we define family. Is our family our home, our friends or those to whom we are biologically related? Maddy’s relationship with her sidekick, Root, is particularly poignant. As they flee the scene of the crime, Maddy notes that though nothing about her appearance should be memorable to the man in the park, “Root was something you’d remember,” with one blue eye and one brown.
A journalist who has written extensively about homelessness and mental health issues, particularly in California, Seligman is a keen observer of the wealth gap in
San Francisco and the challenges facing those experiencing homelessness. Seligman’s writing is at its best when it juxtaposes the experiences of living in San Francisco for those who have and those who have not.
Seligman vividly describes an animal shelter with individual rooms decorated with beds, sofas and flatscreen TVs, as well as a cafe serving homemade organic dog biscuits. “The city stepped all over itself for dogs,” she writes. She describes the indignities of tourists snapping photos of those living on the streets, of sweeps that threaten to strip unhoused people of their possessions, and of the cruel comments aimed at Maddy and her friends by some of San Francisco’s housed residents.
A canon of contemporary fiction centering on homeless characters does not yet exist, and by writing Maddy’s story with compassion, Seligman increases representation of a marginalized group. But a reader would be remiss to assume a broad understanding about homelessness after reading this narrative, as it is a singular story and a work of fiction.
The novel’s ending is a bit difficult to discern, as Maddy’s desires are not entirely clear throughout the book, yet it leaves readers to consider our understandings and misunderstandings around the experience of homelessness, as well as the importance of treating all residents with more respect and empathy.