The Content of desperation

Two artists (Delia Bajo and Brainard Carey) live in the East Village of New York City. They get married, and after Delia gets pregnant, they decide to have the child, faced with neither insurance or a steady income. They ask for help in a unique way—by sending out one hundred thousand letters via email asking for advice, a donation, or help of any kind. While they are trying to make art, to raise a child, to live, they are hounded by the cruelest of predators —the bills. Strangely perhaps, they persevere through the most desperate situations with tempers and tears, and have not given up.
This book is one story of survival, of desperation, of a gamble that they took with the stress and anticipation of a child on the way. In the letters of advice that came in and are printed here, there are glimpses of man’s humanity to man. And even when there is a bit of inhumanity, it often carries an overtone of care, undermining its angry surface.
This is a book of hope.