In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.
Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.
The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row cloth.
In due course, Love learned the members’ stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.
Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.
The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.
Special donation to Support Distribution of The Old Crow Book Club.