All Else Failed

Dana Sachs is a journalist, novelist, and cofounder of the nonprofit Humanity Now: Direct Refugee Relief, which supports grassroots teams providing aid to displaced people. A former Fulbright Scholar, she is the author of three works of nonfiction, The House on Dream Street: Memoir of an American Woman in Vietnam; The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam; and All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis, as well as the novels If You Lived Here and The Secret of the Nightingale Palace. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and Mother Jones. Sachs lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Dayton Literary Peace Prize FinalistClara Johnson Award Finalist“A firsthand account of the unimaginable migrant crisis. . . . The book’s harrowing narrative describes the volunteer civilian heroes who rescued courageous migrant families escaping persecution, war, and dire circumstances without the help or resources from wealthy European States or international aid organizations.” —Clara Johnson Award jury citation“Sachs writes moving passages about the boundlessness of human generosity.” —Reason“Remarkable. . . . All Else Failed has more than passing relevance.” —Wilmington Star-News“[Sachs] reveals the ways people fleeing for their lives take time to care for one another in the midst of panic and heartbreak. . . . In moments of desperation, goodness shines. This book is a testament to that.” —Washington Independent Review of Books“Gripping, and deeply absorbing. . . . [All Else Failed] serves as both sympathetic companion and useful guide for grassroots volunteers and organizers in future crisis zones.” —Colorado Review“A multilayered journalistic account. . . . Some of the most powerful individual lessons we may learn from those chronicled in these pages involve the need to tend to one’s own mental health and personal boundaries while providing aid and succor.” —North of Oxford“A stunning portrait of hardship, despair, and resilience.” —Publishers Weekly“This people-first, intensely researched, deeply personal, and altogether devastating call to action tells us that when all else fails, volunteer.” —Booklist“Inspiring and troubling.” —Kirkus Reviews“Timely and important.” —Midwest Book Review“[Sachs] clearly conveys people’s resourcefulness and generosity as well as the size and complexity of the situation. As large numbers of people continue to leave their home countries for wealthier nations due to difficult situations, this book provides a personal look at what that entails.” —Choice“Dana Sachs’s vivid, passionate book will shake any faith you once had in international aid organizations. But it will move and inspire you, and bring a lump to your throat, by its portraits of big-hearted women and men from many countries who jumped in to help fellow human beings caught up in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time.” —Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and To End All Wars“An urgent, deeply researched, and tender account of the helpers: refugee crisis volunteers (often formerly displaced) who arrive when those responsible for the chaos have turned their backs. Vital, and often infuriating, it is at once global in scale and absolutely singular. This is a story about the drive to nurture and care for our fellow humans, one that stirs us all.” —Dina Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee“Sachs chronicles what happened in Greece when Middle Eastern refugees and volunteers from around the world converged, imperfectly, often chaotically, but with empathy and generosity in ways that mattered and ways that moved me. Sometimes these impromptu communities fail in the end, but the fact that they succeeded for a time, against the odds, can teach us important lessons.” —Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark and Not Too Late