Hoarders

A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2021
An NPR Best Book of 2021
An Electric Literature Best Poetry Book of 2021
A Dennis Cooper Best Book of 2021

Hoarders is a tender and unusual exploration of place, loneliness, grief, and desire in late capitalist America.

What is the true nature of the relationship between people and objects? Kate Durbin's Hoarders is a quest into this question, vividly capturing the sticky attachments between people and their stuff.

To create the book, Durbin took detailed notes while watching the reality TV show of the same name, one she had resisted watching for years because of her family's history of hoarding. She then began whittling, re-arranging, researching, and writing, and what emerges is her unique form-fifteen jewel-like portraits of people and their beloved objects, in curious conversation with one another.

Noah and Allie live in a Chicago house toppling with books. Chuck from Bisbee, Arizona hoards thousands of paintings of naked women. Gary from Franklin, Indiana has transformed his home into a forest, where he falls asleep each night surrounded by plants, both living and dead. Cathy in Centralia, Illinois spends her nights ordering Lularoe leggings and jewelry from Home Shopping channels. Shelley's house in Warren, Michigan is crowded with Barbies and Beanie Babies. Durbin doesn't directly critique the reality show, yet she deftly demonstrates through these magnetic poems that there's far more to a person, a life, and their "things."