Standpipe is a brief, elegant memoir of the author's work as a Red Cross volunteer delivering emergency water to residents of Flint, Michigan. A collection of short essays and vignettes, Standpipe sets the struggles of a city in crisis against the author's personal journey as his mother declines into dementia and eventual death, just before the emergency is declared in Flint. Written with a poet's eye for detail and quiet metaphor, Standpipe is an intimate look at one man's engagement with both civic and familial trauma.