People of the Streets

''People of the streets... you become aware of them, and wonder who and what they are... what kind of lives they have, and what living them means...''

First published in 1968, People of the Streets was Tony Parker''s sixth book, for which he spent a year approaching and interviewing people in London who were living their daily lives on street corners, along gutters or in subways. With his usual skill he coaxed them out of their natural reticence, born of solitude, into an unfamiliar but hugely illuminating spontaneity.

''In [Parker''s] books the strength lies in the interpretive mind of the writer... He is a sociologist studying single cases in some depth and shows qualities of imagination shared by the historian and the biographer - a mixture of intelligence, sympathy and empathy.'' TLS