Home Girl

April 28, 2008
Although a roving international reporter used to being in the trenches, Matloff (Fragments of a Forgotten War
) was so eager to make a nest with her new Dutch husband that she neglected to research the West Harlem, New York, street where she snagged a commodious four-story townhouse at a bargain price in 2000. “Needs TLC” indeed proved a euphemism for the decrepit state of the building, and the street hopping with Dominican drug dealers and their out-of-state, SUV-parking customers stood at the “epicenter” of narcotics trafficking on the eastern seaboard. Matloff relates with graceful humor how she had to negotiate gingerly among such resentful locals as Salami, a drug-addled squatter next door who enjoyed taunting her; the street's kingpin dealer Miguel, from whom she sought protection; and the entrenched, terrified black residents who coexisted mistrustfully with their poorer Dominican neighbors amid a kind of “social apartheid.” Meanwhile, she jump-started renovations on the house with a motley ethnic crew of bickering workers until she was finally joined by her husband, John, and their dog once John secured a visa. The couple's presence bolstered the street's activism, and along with shakeups in city politics, the state of siege began to lift and the street makeup changed. While her narrative occasionally becomes long-winded in her thoughts on gentrification, Matloff is a writing pro, sprightly and thorough in her characterizations.

June 1, 2008
After 20 years living an exciting but nomadic life in the foreign press corps, Matloff feels the tug of motherhood. She and her husband, John, quit their Moscow jobs andchoose New York City for their next home, though neither had worked in the U.S. before. Charged with finding their abode, Judith is drawn to Harlem, where prices are refreshingly low, but house hunting requires wearing gloves to protect against crack vials, and boots to navigate rodent dung. In a block she hopes is on the cusp of rehabilitation--thoughthe local cops see itas "the epicenter of narcotics trafficking on the entire northeastern seaboard"--Matloff rejoices in her discovery of a 4,800 square-foot townhouse with caving-in ceilings and a bigbackyard. She takes the reader step by step through the renovations accomplished by a crew of locals with dubious credentials, introducing along the way a unique bunch of neighborhood activists who become fast friends. Happily she becomes pregnant and gives birth shortly before 9/11; by then she and John are thoroughly ensconced in their adopted home.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)