by B. J. Chute
First published 1986
Florence Butler has everything a woman could want. Money flows freely through her social circle. Friends fill her calendar. Family members check in regularly. Yet she walks away from it all to join the homeless on Manhattan's unforgiving streets. Florence trades her warm bed for park benches and doorways. She exchanges restaurant meals for whatever scraps she can find. Her family cannot understand her choice. Her friends think she has lost her mind. Florence carries a bag containing her few possessions and learns the harsh rules of street survival. She discovers a hidden world that exists parallel to her former life of privilege. The city tests her in ways her comfortable existence never did. Florence must confront what drove her to make such a drastic change. She faces the question of whether choosing poverty over prosperity makes her foolish or wise.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, social-issues
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, social-commentary
Setting: Manhattan, New York
Period: 20th-century
244 pages · Hardcover · Vanguard Pr