Book Review: Shopping Bag Ladies by Ann Marie Rousseau
Shopping Bag Ladies is a photo essay by artist Rousseau accompanied by personal narratives from dozens of unhoused women living in New York City. It’s all too easy to dismiss and overlook unhoused people if you haven’t endured homelessness yourself or don’t know someone who has. For many people, the homeless are a part of the scenery, a nuisance, or even a source of fear. They are drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals, or just too lazy to get their lives together. Certainly, anyone who is hard-working, studious, and careful with their money would never end up like that. At least, that’s the comforting fantasy many people tell themselves. But the narratives in “Shopping Bag Ladies” force the reader to see the history and humanity of its unhoused subjects. These women have, or had, families, loved ones, jobs, even successful careers. They have ended up without stable housing for a myriad of reasons, and there usually is no one event that brought them here. Their own w...