DEVIL’S NIGHT AND OTHER TRUE TALES OF...

DEVIL’S NIGHT AND OTHER TRUE TALES OF DETROIT, by Ze’ev Chafets (Vintage: $10). In 1988, Detroit-born journalist Ze’ev Chafets revisited his home town after emigrating to Israel, and compiled this gritty memoir. Chafets discovered that the city that once embodied the American dream has been reduced to a crumbling shell. As the U.S. auto industry declined, middle-class whites fled to the suburbs, leaving a city stripped of its economic base to poor black workers who couldn’t afford to leave. Attempts at urban renewal focused on big, glitzy riverfront projects rather than on the decaying commercial and residential neighborhoods. On Devil’s Night (the night before Halloween), arson becomes a spectator sport in Detroit as scores of deserted houses and stores are torched by people whose hopes are limited to a few cheap thrills. Although he looks for hopeful signs amid the rubble, Chafets paints a grimly fascinating portrait of urban decay at its bleakest.