HOME GIRL(ISBN=9780812978988)

After twenty years as a foreign correspondent in tumultuous locales, Judith Matloff is ready to return to her native New York City and start a family with her husband, John. Intoxicated by West Harlem’s cultural diversity and, more important, its affordability, Judith impulsively buys a stately fixer-upper brownstone in the neighborhood–only to discover that this dream house was once a crack den and that calling it a “fixer upper” is an understatement. Thus begins the couple’s odyssey to win over brazen drug dealers, delinquent construction workers, and eccentric neighbors in one of the biggest drug zones in the country. It’s a far cry from utopia, but it’s a start, and Judith and John do all they can to carve out a comfortable life–and, over time, come to appreciate the neighborhood’s rough charms. A wry, reflective, and hugely entertaining memoir, Home Girl is for anyone who has longed to go home, however complicated the journey.

Judith Matloff is a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was a foreign correspondent for twenty years, lastly as the bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor in Africa and Moscow. Her stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Economist, Newsweek, and The Dallas Morning News, and she is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant, a Fulbright fellowship, and the Godsell, the Monitor’s highest accolade for correspondence. Matloff still lives in West Harlem with her husband and son.

Author’S Note
Prologue
PART ONE
  Chapter 1 Somewhere Uncivilized
  Chapter2 The Decision
  Chapter3 The Hunt
  Chapter4 Surprise!
  Chapter5 “Only God Can Protect Us”
  Chapter 6 The Narcotics Wall Street
  Chapter 7 Meet the Neighbors
  Chapter8 Abdu
  Chapter 9 Peace Talks
PART TW0
  Chapter l0 Homeland Insecurity
  Chapter ll Disunited Nations
  Chapter l2 Nice Bones，Rotten Organs
  Chapter l3 A Parking Space for Mom
  Chapter l4 Quis CustodietIpsos Custodes？
  Chapter l5 Pioneer Living l l44
  Chapter 16 Ways to Kill a Cat
  Chapter 17 The Men from Mornenegro
  Chapter l8 CharmingApartment，with Doorman|180
  Chapter 19 State of Emergency
  Chapter 20 Anton l 205
  Chapter 21 Latte Arrives
  Chapter 22 SnortingAnthrax
PART THREE
  Chapter 23 Adi6s，Miguel
  Chapter 24 A Son of the Calle
  Chapter 25 Lights Out!
  Epilogue
  Acknowledgments