In Dale Maharidge’s four-decade career as a writer and journalist, he has documented the downward spiral of the American working class into poverty. That is the destiny for increasing numbers of people in the 2020s and, as Maharidge discovers spray-painted inside an abandoned gas station in the California desert, it is a fate often handed down from birth. After finding that message in the ruins, Pulitzer prize-winner Maharidge sets out across the country to hear directly about the meaning behind those words from activists, leaders, and the people who will be most affected: the poor.

Part raw memoir, part dogged, investigative journalism, Fucked At Birth takes the reader to the Sacramento River, where we visit a homeless encampment with historic origins reaching back to the Great Depression, and a shockingly tenacious and growing grip on its inhabitants. In LA, as the Covid crisis deepens, we face the likelihood of a mass wave of evictions that could lead to tens of thousands of households becoming homeless. And in Denver, a community organizer for BLM shares their enlightenment about economic justice-one that has only emerged thanks to the pandemic, and that unites the poor of this country, regardless of race.

From Crete, Nebraska to Denison, Iowa, Youngstown, Ohio to New York City, Maharidge accesses the past to help inform the voices he encounters today. In an unprecedented time of social activism amid economic crisis, when voices everywhere are rising up for change, Maharidge’s journey channels the spirit of George Orwell and James Agee, raising questions about class and privilege, while serving as a final call to action. Fucked At Birth asks readers to see themselves in the reality of American poverty, and to finally-after decades of refusal-recalibrate what we are going to do about it.