“An innovative study of mental health care for the poorest and the richest of the city’s inhabitants—showing how the system fails all, albeit in different ways. . . . Few authors capture this dynamic as neatly as Gong does in Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics, his study of two strikingly dissimilar mental health treatment regimes in the same city."

The New Republic

"In this nuanced study, UC San Diego sociologist Gong compares and contrasts two mental health 'treatment approaches' in Los Angeles. . . . Gong persuasively recommends establishing a more structured outpatient system of public mental health care (while cautioning against a return to the asylum’s prison-like potential for abuse). Mental health professionals and advocates will find much to learn."

Publishers Weekly

"Gong grapples with the system of mental healthcare that Los Angeles has adopted in the wake of the closure of asylums. . . . He maintains hope we can build a better future for some of the most vulnerable people in our society."

Planet Money

“As street homelessness grows, so does a corresponding mental health and drug crisis. . . . Gong’s book provides a new, critical lens through which to think about how cities respond to homeless tent encampments, deploy the Housing First model, and approach drug decriminalization. His work offers clarity for raging debates about whether governments should bring back forced treatment and asylums for those opposed to voluntary care.”

Vox

"A Best Scholarly Book of 2024. Gong's book is full of haunting and beautiful scenes. . . In Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics, we learn how everyone is harmed by our approach to mental health, and how, for all their differences, both rich and poor sufferers of mental-health conditions are failed by the society they live in."

The Chronicle of Higher Eduation

"Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics points the way to a more honest debate about community mental health." 

City Journal

“In Sons, Daughters and Sidewalk Psychotics, Neil Gong delivers a vivid and up-close ethnographic account of mental illness and homelessness in Los Angeles, California, an account that carefully unpacks individual outcomes at the intersection of personal recovery, mental health care, and social class. . . .  It is the contrast between [two government projects] that reveals some of the profound paradoxes at the heart of contemporary policy responses to the homelessness crisis. In this regard, the book is comparative ethnography at its finest.”

Journal of Urban Affairs

“Sons, Daughters and Sidewalk Psychotics is one of the most significant books on mental health in the past decade. Going forward, it will be a touchstone both for the field and for those theorizing social control generally. Gong has revealed our society’s bifurcated approach to serious mental illness—one system for the rich that works to modify the soul, another for the poor that seeks merely to minimize public nuisances. . . . Gong obtains a rare balance between sophisticated theorizing and accessible prose. The book is simply a great read. It also provides much-needed updating of our understanding of social control and serious mental illness.”

Social Forces

"Sometimes it seems like academic researchers don’t allow the people they are studying to get in the way of a predetermined political perspective. In Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics...the people being discussed actually bear resemblance to those I have personally known, loved, and sometimes feared and even hated...Gong’s work depicts a homelessness that I have experienced in real life. One that is populated by people from different backgrounds, who hold a diversity of perspectives, and whose circumstances have the potential to inform new theoretical insights about cultures of care, resiliencies, and unmitigated marginalization."

Contexts

“Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics is a heartbreaking book. Gong carefully details the way we have created a system in which the right to freedom has far outstripped the right to health care and housing—because that choice saves time and effort for the rest of us. The deep insight of the book is how differently these freedoms unfold for those with money and those without. This is a thoughtful and well-researched book that could help us to make better choices.”

Tanya Luhrmann, author of "Of Two Minds"

“Combining rich storytelling, sharp analysis, and brave scrutiny of unpopular ideas, Gong reveals America’s mental health crisis to be as much about class inequality and cultural hypocrisy as it is about brain chemistry and medical diagnoses. Comparative sociology at its finest, from one of the most promising ethnographers working today.”

Forrest Stuart, author of "Down, Out, and Under Arrest" and "Ballad of the Bullet"

“This book is smart, heartbreaking, and ethnographically rich and glitters with surprising insights. It’s much more than a book about mental illness: it’s about how we define and nurture freedom, personhood, and human dignity—and how we deny them.”

Colin Jerolmack, author of "Up to Heaven and Down to Hell"

“The United States is a world leader in psychiatric science but routinely fails its vulnerable people with severe mental illness. Gong’s study provides critical information for understanding systemic challenges faced by patients, families, clinicians, and public authorities. The novel findings illuminate the half century of failure in community treatment and offer a rich and detailed study for those who aim to advance care and quality of life for the mentally ill.”

William T. Carpenter, editor emeritus of "Schizophrenia Bulletin"

“Set in Los Angeles, epicenter of homelessness, Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics weaves an eloquent tale of the contradictions involved in mental health care for the wealthy versus the indigent. The comparison itself is innovative, as is the idea that freedom, something often prized without question, can mean neglect. It is an engaging read that poses innovative questions about how our understanding of mental health care reflects and perpetuates systems of inequality.”

Michele Wakin, author of "Homelessness in America"

“Sons, Daughters and Sidewalk Psychotics provides an up close, on-the-ground journey into the treatment options and experiences of two strikingly disparate socioeconomic populations: the mentally ill homeless on the streets of Los Angeles and their similarly impaired but economically advantaged counterparts who reside in the upper middle class and upper class neighborhoods of western LA. Given the concerns about homelessness and mental illness across the country, this is a most timely and insightful contribution to understanding of the intersection of these two pressing issues.”

David A. Snow, author (with Leon Anderson) of "Down on Their Luck"