Raves!
“Owings, a San Francisco writer, certainly knows how to pull narrative from people, having previously written three oral history books on Native Americans, waitresses and women who lived in Nazi Germany. It took her nearly a decade of conversations to wrangle details out of Seymour, and the mountain she compiled presents a richly satisfying tapestry….”
— San Francisco Chronicle (full review)
“In this impressive book, author Alison Owings brings colorful anecdotes of Del’s life and of his continued advocacy for the downtrodden in San Francisco. This is a memorable biography that proves to be both entertaining and life-affirming.”
—Booklist
“Alison Owings is a master of oral history. She is a great storyteller, and in Mayor of the Tenderloin, she has a great story to tell.”
—Dan Rather, author of What Unites Us
“Thoroughly enjoyable, and at some points, a romp to read.”—Bay City News
“Mayor of the Tenderloin is a charming, sometimes heartbreaking, tender, and inspiring story, important and beautifully written.”
—Anne Lamott, author of Almost Everything
KRON4 anchor Stephanie Lin interviews Alison Owings and the subject of the book, Mayor of the Tenderloin, Del Seymour
ABOUT THE BOOK
In Mayor of the Tenderloin, journalist Alison Owings slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism surrounding San Francisco’s Tenderloin to reveal a harrowing and life-affirming account of Del Seymour—whose addiction led him into 18 years of homelessness, pimping, and drug dealing. Once sober, he started Tenderloin Walking Tours and later Code Tenderloin, the remarkable organization teaching homeless, recovering addicts, sex workers, dealers, ex-felons, and other marginalized people how to get and keep a job.
Honest and compelling, Mayor of the Tenderloin follows homelessness in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods as it was lived—in the words of someone who lived it and is now fighting to solve it.
Listen to an interview on California Sun with Alison Owings and Del Seymour
Events:
December 11 — 6pm Manny’s at 16th Street and Valencia, San Francisco. Interview by Manny. Books available for sale and signing.
Please check back for more events!
Book launch!
San Francisco Bay Area, September 2024
Photo Credit: Judy Dater
Alison Owings, tree hugger at heart, majored in Journalism at American University, studied at Freiburg University in Germany, worked in television news in Washington, DC and New York City, most memorably for CBS News, then dropped her journalism career to write books. She is one of those semi-rare writers who enjoys both writing and re-writing. Read more:
(Piano Fight photo by Brenton Gieser)
Praise for Mayor of The Tenderloin
“Owings has unsentimentally written a story of both struggle and hope in the absence of real structural humanity, one that winds from the Vietnam War through the crack epidemic to the gleaming facades of the Bay Area’s boom, with Seymour squarely inventing his own path through it all. You won’t forget it.”
—Lauren Sandler, author of This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home
“Alison Owings and her remarkable prose point to the passion and humanity of Del Seymour, and we see things anew. ”
—Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and author of Tattoos on the Heart
“A work produced out of radical listening, compassionate questioning, deft writing, and a genuine desire to give agency, space, and recognition to one of the Tenderloin’s fiercest survivors, advocates, and protectors.”
—Nigel De Juan Hatton, PhD, associate professor of literature and philosophy at the University of California, Merced
“Mayor of the Tenderloin looks unflinchingly at the realities of a huge and expanding population left out and left behind by even our most progressive and enlightened social change movements—the institutional refugees commonly referred to as the homeless.”
—Harry Edwards, PhD, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley
“When I met Del years ago, I had no idea of his incredible life journey but was struck by his compassion, humor, and grace. Today, San Francisco is in awe of the Mayor of the Tenderloin. His story—which could have been any of ours—gives hope that deep community divides can be bridged, and addiction and homelessness can be overcome.”
—San Francisco city attorney David Chiu