Alabama Village: Faith, Hope, and Survival in a Southern Town

Journalist and novelist Garcia (Out of the Rain) offers a lyrical and immersive account of a town outside Mobile, Ala., stigmatized for its violence and poverty. Originally built to house shipyard workers in the 1940s, Alabama Village underwent steep declines in city services, employment opportunities, and safe housing over only a few decades, leading PBS to label it “one of the most violent places in the country” in 2020. Garcia crafts intimate character portraits of Village residents: the elder who survives on food stamps but still offers to shelter homeless neighbors, the respected gang leader who buys bicycles for local kids, the woman who is building a cleaning business to create a better life for her children. At the center of the story are an older couple who opened a ministry, Light of the Village, in an abandoned crack house in 2002, in part to create a “demilitarized zone” for the community. The couple, the narrative poignantly reveals, have touched many lives, but also suffered devastating losses among their congregation, as evidenced by more than 70 names on the church’s Memorial Wall. While richly textured and novelistic, the narrative’s up-close view can leave readers feeling the lack of a bigger picture. Still, it’s a compassionate glimpse of a poverty-stricken town that delves deep beyond the statistics. (Oct.)