Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down

by Anand Pandian

An anthropologist's quest to understand the deep social and political divides in American society, and the everyday strategies that can overcome them.



In 2016, Anand Pandian was alarmed by Donald Trump's harsh attacks on immigrants to the United States, the appeal of that politics of anger and fear. In the years that followed, he crisscrossed the country—from Fargo, North Dakota to Denton, Texas, from southern California to upstate New York—seeking out fellow Americans with markedly different social and political commitments, trying to understand the forces that have hardened our suspicions of others. The result is Something Between The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down, a groundbreaking and ultimately hopeful exploration of the ruptures in our social fabric, and courageous efforts to rebuild a collective life beyond them.



The stakes of disconnection have never been higher. From the plight of migrants and refugees to the climate crisis and the recent pandemic, so much turns on the care and concern we can muster for lives and circumstances beyond our own. But as Pandian discovers, such empathy is often thwarted by the infrastructure of everyday American fortified homes and neighborhoods, bulked-up cars and trucks, visions of the body as an armored fortress, and media that shut out contrary views. Home and road, body and these interlocking walls sharpen the divide between insiders and outsiders, making it difficult to take unfamiliar people and perspectives seriously, to acknowledge the needs of others and relate to their struggles.



Through vivid encounters with Americans of many kinds—including salesmen, truck drivers, police officers, urban planners, and activists for women's rights and environmental justice—Pandian shares tools to think beyond the twists and turns of our bracing present. While our impasses draw from deep American histories of isolation and segregation, he reveals how strategies of mutual aid and communal caretaking can help to surface more radical visions for a life in common with others, ways of meeting strangers in this land as potential kin.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, 21st Century, Sociology, Politics, Race

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 27, 2025

Reviews

[Marl · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2.5 stars rounded down]

"I'm here to understand where we are as a country,”

I am struggling very hard to write a review of this one. Similarly, I struggled very hard to get through this book. With a title taken from a Baldwin quote “These are my countrymen and I do care about them and even if I didn’t, there is something between us,”, Something Between Us is an examination of the current state of neighborliness in America (since 2016) and how politics has deepened the walls, physical, internal, metaphorical, between us all. I feel like this is more so a book to read in accompaniment with other books on redlining, car-centric city design, immigration policy, etc. - in order to get a more rounded view on the “people’s view” aspect of those issues - than on its own. It is interesting to read about Pandian’s interactions and relationships with people across the political spectrum though - as someone who’s been a retail worker in Ohio for the past four years - I could have recited some of these sentiments myself.

The author states that he himself is more liberal/left-leaning/whatever brand of non-conservative John Hopkins professor that he would describe himself. He does not shy away from being friends/maintaining contact with more centrist or right leaning people, though, which he discusses at various points in this book. That being said, I am also not a conservative American and can really only speak about reading it from that perspective. I do not know if you would enjoy this book as a conservative. I do still think you should read it (or rather, other books like it). The same goes for centrists, though I feel that they would fare better than right-wingers with it. I don’t mean that as a “you just won’t get it” scare, but I really have no way of deciding one or the other. It’s not good enough of a book to warrant me debating about it too hard, to be fair.

This is an ethnography - a wide study on the people and culture of an area in a specific time - and therefore does not set out to give suggestions or to solve anything. Instead, it is just a recounting of the many interactions with others about the political climate of the last almost decade along with some analysis. This analysis mostly comes in the form of relating his observations and quotes to other, older related quotations and analysis. Some of these are contemporary anthropologists, some are quotes from people in the past, and some are from older literature. For the older ones, it is interesting to see the repeated sentiments that occur in conservative circles, such as the example in a later chapter where he compares the concern of conservatives regarding immigrants coming from the Southern border bringing diseases to the outrage over Yellow Fever that happened in the 18-19th centuries. However, this constant reading out of other quotations in lue of his own words became tiring to read. It’s just not the style of nonfiction that I enjoy unless it is done perfectly.

“The narrative is organized into four sections, each focusing on a different kind of hardening of American life: walls for the home and road, body and mind”. With this layout, described in the introduction, Pandian lays out his organization method of the book. A foreword, an introduction, four themed parts with three chapters each (individually focused on a different location across the USA), and a conclusion. I really enjoyed this and admire how he took his idea of walls to such a depth. He picks out some very creative spaces to look into, such as the security guards at a Floridian gated community, the amount of people moving from sedans to SUVs and the arms-race of sorts that comes with this change, and the ways that many people, conservative and liberal, see the body as a wall of its own. Just in these concepts and chapter introductions house ideas that I will think and relate new information back to for a long time.

His transcriptions and discussion of his own interviews and interactions with others are the most interesting parts of the book (though they frequently become lacking when paired with the mediocre analysis). As Pandian puts it: "As an anthropologist, my method is to canvass firsthand perspectives and contrary points of view on topics that people would otherwise tend to take for granted”. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on his time at a white supremacist rally (one shortly following Charlottesville’s 2017 Unite the Right rally). I thought that he was really able to explore what these men in the crowd were saying and parse out their beliefs, how they compare to the most radical in the group, and how it relates to the state of neighborliness in the country. His chapter where he speaks to a conservative political comic artist is another standout, as this one allowed for repeated interactions with the same person (this was probably the strongest chapter in the book). Some of these interactions are really lacking, though. The ones about the town with polluted water + his discussions with those at a bottled water convention was weirdly weak. I felt like he really didn’t say much in that one, even compared to the others with so little analysis. Another, about the Juneteenth celebration put on by a town, was also just as weak. I’m finding it hard to put together why some felt more laid out or interesting than others. I think I was just very underwhelmed in general. I always wanted him to talk more, make more interesting connections, and have more interesting conversations. I'm always left with this pervasive "so what?" at the end of each chapter, which is never fulfilled.

I hate when books have a “conclusion” chapter that is really just another chapter. “Conclusion” should indicate at least some analysis, discussion, and give a general sense of why anything the author just talked about matters. The conclusion chapter of this book is just another bonus chapter discussing the same as the rest. There are a few lines where he tries to relate it back to the whole book and greater discussion, but it's hardly anything. A peeve of mine when it comes to nonfiction that happens all too often.

I really, really wish that I loved this book. Again, it would be wonderful to mix in with other related nonfiction to provide an average human POV touch. The glimpses we get at the beliefs of conservatives (writing this as a very Not conservative American) are all interesting, especially when Pandian, in his questions, is able to peel back their beliefs a bit more to get at the specifics. One of the things that I got the most out of this book was seeing just how non-uniform right-leaning US politics are. It should be obvious, given the state of left-leaning politics here today, but it is just interesting to see the same happening on the other field. The men interviewed were so casual about it as well in a way that I haven’t really seen before in political discussions (on any side). A quote from near the end of the book sums this interest of mine up well, I think: “Knowing that there are people instead of monsters on the other side doesn't tell us anything about how to live with them.”

Anyways, here’s a quick dump of some of my favorite highlights I made while reading. If any of these, or anything earlier, peaks your interest, please check the book out! Don’t let one mostly negative review stop you.

“Were Americans willing to meet others in the world as possible neighbors, as people who deserved their attention and concern?”
“James Baldwin described it as a "death of the heart," the price America paid for racial segregation: ‘You don't know what's happening on the other side of the wall.’”
“This book seeks to convey both the difficulties posed by a society of pervasive walls and the unexpected openings they nevertheless allow.”
“American suburbia is a defensive formation”
“I wanted to understand why these young women were so keen on reconciliation. One of them, Rowda, put it simply: ‘We are neighbors, we should be united.’”
“I realized how differently we imagined what it meant to live side by side with others. I saw differences as natural and necessary. He took them as signs of a looming dispossession.”
“Americans have profoundly different ideas about what is simply real, ideas that sometimes verge on the irreconcilable.”
"You build a wall around your communication style. We're gonna put up this wall. We're not crossing it to talk about menstruation. We're not crossing it to talk about abortion. You build that wall and pretend that everything on the other side doesn't exist. You don't cross it to talk about any of these really difficult topics that need to be talked about.”
“Walls at home and on the road, shielding the body from exposure and the mind from uncomfortable ideas”

[Jason Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author identifies the trouble so many of us deal with amidst the information age—how do we connect with those we fundamentally differ? Where does one even begin dialogue with those that categorically deny reason and objective truths in favor of political narratives?

The author highlights the challenges of an increasingly distant and disconnected society, but leaves the reader wanting for any tangible way forward; ergo, more of the same…we get it, people will choose their persuasions over reason, but what does one do about it?

[Michael McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book on the walls we build both literally and metaphorically. It is well written book on a topic I am quite moved by, but it feels late to the party. 2017 and the start of Trump’s first term were referenced so often I wondered if this was a reissue. These trying times and the fallout from that election and COVID aren’t particularly fresh topics and from where I’m sitting 2017 feels like a lifetime ago.

The first section on border was fine. However over the last few years I’ve read no less than three excellent books over the last few years that dove deep into the topic. The same for the sections on “the road” about how our city planning and SUV wall us off from our neighbors and the impact of COVID and “the body” about COVID. Only the final section on “the mind” with an anecdote about interactions with conservatives and a section on menstrual equity fully captured my attention.

I was also hoping there would be more constructive advice on how to course correct the polarizing moment we are in. I know that communication is important, but it feels so impossible when the second the people you are talking to tap out of the conversation the moment they realize you aren’t fervently agreeing with them.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciate how the author went into specific communities and spoke to people across the spectrum -- rural, urban, conservative, liberal -- and took the time to talk with them specifically about the sociopolitical divide in the United States, how people have become disconnected from one another, and how we might attempt to bridge those gaps. In reaching out to these individuals and learning about their concerns, he makes it clear that the fortresses we've built - gigantic SUVs, homes where people congregate in fenced backyards rather than on public-facing front porches - have contributed to the problem, but also how we've created barriers with our bodies, treating them as "an individual container to shield and protect" from environmental toxins and pandemic fears, rather than "as a meeting ground for many different relationships of implication and exposure" (154). Noting that our bodies and minds, collectively, reflect our cultural lack of emphasis on well-being and social justice, he argues for communities where we are all participating in "a more engaged and responsive living" (227) that supports and advocates for the most vulnerable among us. It's a great, thought-provoking book, well thought-out and clearly the project of a lot of research and study.

[Lily Sagers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, to just explore different topics affecting America and offer observations, trying to figure out how we ended up here. No real solutions are offered, but just treading into the different topics kept me intrigued.