Thoughts on Giving Away The Old Crow Book Club to Homeless People

Ever since The Old Crow Book Club came out last spring, I have given the book away to random homeless people in the neighborhood if they look like the reading type. Many do look that type.

I always provide a brief introduction to the book’s subject: homelessness in the neighborhood. Then I shell out a couple of bucks and go on my way. Sometimes the author reveals his identity.

The latest incident occurred a couple weeks ago in front of the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. A young homeless couple with a gray pit bull sat in front of the main entrance with their possessions arranged neatly around them. The man had his arm around the woman. The dog was old and appeared as if he’d see it all.

They were new to the neighborhood. Always new homeless people to the neighborhood. Some stay indefinitely but most migrate through.

The couple had no sign advertising need. They didn’t solicit vocally. I was on my way back from the farmer’s market with a copy of the book stuffed in my back pocket. I do that occasionally. Is that weird? It doesn’t feel weird to me. How else do you distribute a book about homelessness to people who are homeless? You have to be ready at all times.

I presented the book and two bucks. They both thanked me and I saw the woman thumbing pages as I departed.

This sort of exchange frequently conflicts me. Does a homeless person really need a book about homelessness? Typically when encountering people living on the streets who are reading, the genre is fiction and most of it fantasy. That makes sense. Let a novel transport you away from your current reality. The Old Crow Book Club brings you right back.

I never wrote the book with an audience in mind. There was no editorial agenda. I know members of the book club read the book and seemed to enjoy it, but except for Mark, none of the rest of the crew has made it into housing. They currently all are in more dire straits than a year ago.

Sometimes when I give the book away to a homeless person, the act feels pretentious or self important, even a bit condescending. These people don’t need to read this book! They need housing and other services. The book isn’t a guide to secure housing. It’s a guide to how one homeless person can’t secure housing! It doesn’t have a happy ending.

Three homeless people in the neighborhood who read the book, loved it, and told me it was the only book they’ve ever read, are still homeless. Actually, one of them is dead from a fentanyl overdose.

Why did I write this book and distribute it for free via street libraries around Oregon? I don’t know for sure. I just wanted it out to the world, and if helped in some small way to get my friend Mark into housing, and I think it did, then it will be the greatest reward of my literary life and that includes interviewing Portland Trail Blazer legend Maurice Lucas, resurrecting the Vortex I rock festival story, and receiving a fan letter from Julie Newmar for an essay I wrote about her starring as Catwoman in the Batman TV series that I watched in 3D View-Master reels as a kid.

I might also add that much of time I wrote The Old Crow Book Club was from a place of pure joy. That rarely happens anymore with my writing about the homeless.