I understand what the author was trying to do with this book. I get that it was supposed to be a trip through the lives of those that are judged on a daily basis. However, the presentation left little more than the desire to further distance myself from those individuals. It was chock full of nasty experiences and descriptions that seemed to have little more purpose than shock value. Full of stereotypical imagery, the stories are exactly the kind of thing you would expect out of an inexperienced B movie director making his first documentary. Two stars for intention. The book itself receives zero. ( )

I did not like The Hobo by Dick Murphy-Scott. I think it perpetuates stereotypes about the homeless.

Mr. Murphy-Scott is both an alcoholic and a drug addict. He assumes that all homeless are like him. I had qualms about that so I looked up the available studies on the Internet. The results about the percentage of homeless who are alcoholic or homeless are conflicting. One study said 50% of the homeless are substance abusers while another said 35 to 45% were. I have personally known two homeless people and neither one had those problems.
This story is easy to read and but gritty, full of explicit sex and violence. I did not like that there were no pauses in the story; it just went on and on.

I would not like to meet the author. In his memoir, he was consistently selfish, violent and opportunistic. It is difficult to say if he had always been that way or if his personality changed after he became a substance abuser.

On the positive side, he did relate the strategies of that homeless people use to survive. That was informative. But I got the feeling that he was saying that he was a typical homeless person and I cannot accept that. I think he represents some of them but not all.

I would not recommend this book for reading. I was very glad to finish it. I think that it would be useful for understanding substance abusers. I agree with him that giving an addict a place to live and food to eat is not enough to turn them away from their addiction, there has to be more. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was very raw and an eye-opener into the life of a homeless person. I would like to know more about this author, Dick Murphy-Scott. The book seems to be self published as there are many typos, which makes it a little hard to read. I was able to find a Facebook page on the author, but no information is included. The believe the story is true and it makes me feel for the characters in the book. ( )

It is difficult to know where to put this book in terms of genre. The author writes as though he is telling the 'civilized' world how tramps, hobos, alcoholics and outcasts think and act, while his forward lends credence to the fact that this may, in fact, be an autobiography of sorts. At any rate, we are taken into a narrow window of time in the life of a hobo, DJ, who engages in theft, sex, panhandling and drinking while getting mixed up in a drug smuggling operation.

This is not a book for the faint of heart or the prude. It is raw, coarse, frank and realistic. Even a few typos and editing oversights lend themselves to the suggestion that the author just sat down one day, sober, and wrote in his diary. It is brutally realistic and somewhat original and for that, it gets 3 stars or better depending on what you're looking for. Overall I'd say 2 stars due to the lack of polish.

Warning, highly adult content.

This book was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Very easy book to read. Very intersting how the chacter of the book slept, ate and how to use people to get what he wants. The book was well written I will recommend this book to my family and friends to read it. ( )