In Edward P. Jones’s short story “His Mother’s House”, the characters Joyce and Santiago Moses are able to escape poverty and the Northeast neighborhood of Washington by selling crack cocaine. After becoming rich, the characters leave their old lives behind them by moving to the wealthier quadrant of Northwest, replacing old furniture even though it has sentimental value and distancing themselves from family or near-family connections from their old neighborhood. Unfortunately, moving to the “safety” and wealth of Northwest cannot protect the family from violence and corruption, and the story climaxes with Santiago murdering his god-brother on the sidewalk of the 10th Street House over a drug dispute. In the story, drugs offer the promise of escape to dealers as well as users, but the escape is illusory for all of them.
Homes in “His Mother’s House” by Median Household Income: Income inequality data show how Joyce’s neighborhood in Northeast was primarily made up of people living below the poverty line. Her new home, in the wealthier quadrant of Northwest, would be surrounded by people considered upper class. Characters in “His Mother’s House” repeatedly equate wealth with safety and security, but the most violent moment of the story takes place on the red side of the map.
During the 1980s, many low-income Black Americans in Washington D.C. became addicted to crack cocaine as a means of coping with the struggles poverty created (Fenson). High demand for crack made selling lucrative, and dealing drugs became a means for young men like Santiago to escape the cycles of poverty they were born into. While many of these young people were successfully able to make money from the crack epidemic—even purchasing homes in wealthier neighborhoods like Joyce’s house on 10th Street—the illegal nature of crack, the large sums of money, and the instability of those addicted made crack dealing a very dangerous job. Many young men trying to escape the dangers of poverty such as hunger and illness were thrust into a much more dangerous world of violence and greed. In “His Mother’s House” the main characters believe they have made it out of poverty and are ready for a fresh start in a wealthy neighborhood, only to discover that inequality is so embedded in the framework of society that acquisition of wealth only exposes them to more violence and corruption.
Jones uses “His Mother’s House” to tell a story about money, fate, and home. All the characters are fated by society into a life of struggle in Northeast, their geographical home as well as the location of their friends, family, and institutions. When Santiago is given the opportunity to escape his fate, he takes it and his family builds and nourishes a new home, even if glimmers of Northeast are seen through Joyce’s second-hand coffee table. The story shows how, though the family is certainly given an unfair hand by fate, they are not immune to the corruption money brings. Santiago replaces all the furniture in the new home except the coffee table, while Joyce seldom visits her mother and pushes to her husband to work even more, all in an effort to erase all traces their previous lives in poverty. The story ends with Santiago shooting his god-brother in front of his expensive new home, severing a final link to his past and demonstrating Santiago’s desperation to escape his fate. As with Lydia’s cab ride in “Lost in the City” or the legacy of trying to create a Black homeland in Nicodemus, Kansas, the world of Lost in the City is animated by the desire of many of its characters to find something different from the broken system they inhabit, but the book offers them no real way out.
Works Cited
Fenson, Jacob. “Crack’s Rapid Rise Brought Chaos To D.C.” WAMU, American University, 27 Jan. 2014, wamu.org/story/14/01/27/crack_1/.
Jones, Edward P. “His Mother’s House.” Lost in the City: Stories. Amistad, 2012.
