Disillusioned shows how for generations, upwardly mobile white families have extracted opportunity from the nation’s heavily subsidized suburbs, then moved on before the bills for maintenance and repair came due, leaving the mostly Black and Brown families who followed to clean up the ensuing mess. But now, sweeping demographic shifts and the dawning realization that endless expansion is no longer feasible. In Disillusioned, Herold explores the pressing debates of suburban living with expertise and perspective. Then, alongside Bethany Smith—a mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book—he offers a hopeful path toward renewal.

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Copies of Disillusioned are available for purchase through the Mark Twain Store; proceeds benefit The Mark Twain House & Museum. Books will be shipped after the event. We regret that we are NOT able to ship books outside the United States as it is cost-prohibitive to do so. _____________________________________________________________

About the Author: Benjamin Herold explores America’s beautiful and busted public education system. His award-winning beat reporting, feature writing, and investigative exposés have appeared in Education Week, PBS NewsHour, NPR, and the Public School Notebook. Herold has a master’s degree in urban education from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he lives with his family and has worked as a waiter, researcher, documentary filmmaker, and training specialist for rape-crisis and domestic-violence prevention organizations.

About the Moderator: Noliwe Rooks is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work explores how race and gender both impact and are impacted by popular culture, social history, and political life in the United States. She is the chair of and a professor in Africana Studies at Brown University and the founding director of the Segrenomics Lab at the school. She is the author of four books and is a regular contributor to popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Time Magazine, and NPR. Rooks’ current book, in which she coined the term “segrenomics,” is Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education which won an award for non-fiction from the Hurston/Wright Foundation. She lectures frequently at colleges and universities around the country. _____________________________________________________________

Virtual author programs are supported by Suzanne Hopgood in the memory of former MTH&M Trustee Frank Lord.