Charlie Duff, "Detroit: An American Autopsy" (2013)

A beautiful book. Duff spares no one in his commentary from inside the belly of the corpse that is contemporary Detroit. From the trials faced by emergency responders, police, newspaper folk, regular citizens, the under- and unemployed, the homeless, city politicians, business owners, criminals... they all play a role in the decrepit stage Duff narrates his story upon.

His story is not merciless; he clearly loves the city he grew up in, and returned to. He has family there, who much like the city itself, struggle with decay, loss of dignity, and poor coping mechanisms. They figure in his story as well.

Elegiac in tone, unsparing in its assessment, frightening in its observations, Duff has indeed offered an autopsy for a patient who has died. The city he describes is a new thing, a shell of the destroyed American dream.