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Taking on the thorny ethics of owning and selling property as a white woman in a majority Black city and a majority Bangladeshi neighborhood with both intelligence and humor, this memoir brings a new perspective to a Detroit that finds itself perpetually on the brink of revitalization.In 2016, a Detroit arts organization grants writer and artist Anne Elizabeth Moore a free house—a room of her own, à la Virginia Woolf—in Detroit's majority-Bangladeshi “Banglatown.” Accompanied by her cats, Moore moves to the bungalow in her new city where she gardens, befriends the neighborhood youth, and grows to intimately understand civic collapse and community solidarity. When the troubled history of her prize house comes to light, Moore finds her life destabilized by the aftershocks of the housing crisis and governmental corruption. This is also a memoir of art, gender, work, and survival. Moore writes into the gaps of Woolf's declaration that “a woman must have money and a room of one's own if she is to write”; what if this woman were queer and living with chronic illness, as Moore is, or a South Asian immigrant, like Moore's neighbors? And what if her primary coping mechanism was jokes? Part investigation, part comedy of a vexing city, and part love letter to girlhood, Gentrifier examines capitalism, property ownership, and whiteness, asking if we can ever really win when violence and profit are inextricably linked with victory.

What if death is only an urban legend?On a spring morning in early May, Diane wakes up to find her beautiful 16-year old daughter, Callie, lying dead on the floor of her bedroom. The police find a suicide note in Callie's jewelry chest and Diane's whole world, as she had previously known it, falls apart.In the afterlife, Callie meets her great grandma, Ellie, who tells her that she's in a part of heaven called Summer Wind and can never return home again. She wrestles with her abrupt and impulsive decision to take her own life and witnesses the impact that this event has on all who love her.Diane begins a desperate search for answers by tearing apart Callie's bedroom looking for anything that might tell her what drove her daughter to suicide. She visits Joy, a spiritual healer, who tells her that she must learn to seek the gift in her experiences rather than remaining addicted to her guilt and pain. Diane struggles with letting go of the daughter she once knew and all her hopes and dreams for the future.Desperate to reassure her mother that she's okay, Callie attempts to communicate with her from beyond the veil. They both begin a heart-wrenching journey to find one another once again.