Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

304 pages

Read by Dion Graham

5 hours, 40 minutes

Published March 2023 by Crown Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? 

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow. 

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

My Thoughts (and those of others): 

“Provocative and compelling . . . [Desmond] packs in a sweeping array of examples and numbers to support his thesis and . . . the accumulation has the effect of shifting one’s brain ever so slightly to change the entire frame of reference.”—NPR 

 “[Poverty, by America is] a book that could alter the way you see the world. . . . It reads almost like a passionate speech, urging us to dig deeper, to forget what we think we know as we try to understand the inequities upon which America was built. . . . A surprisingly hopeful work.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A powerful polemic, one that has expanded and deepened my understanding of American poverty. Desmond approaches the subject with a refreshing candidness and directs his ire toward all the right places.”—Roxane Gay

“This book is essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging.”—Ann Patchett

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. This book is every bit of all of those things. It's another book that makes me so angry while I'm reading it; so hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we can start making that changes needed to, at a minimum, reduce poverty; and, so disappointed in myself for not knowing more about this subject and doing more to help. 

Desmond doesn't just offer up an accounting of the failures of this country, its leaders, and its citizens. He offers solutions. Solutions that seem reasonable and doable, if only we could get our priorities straight and see how lifting everyone up with help all of us. 

But in me, Desmond is preaching to the choir. I'm open to listening to what he has to say and can see the logic in his thinking. Unfortunately, I doubt that the people who most need to read this book will ever pick it up. 

This book made me feel smarter, more informed. In fact, as I was listening to it, the issue of the minimum wage came up in a discussion and I was able to contribute an idea that I had learned from listening to this book. My only issue with this book - I wish I'd had it all in print so that I could have highlighted passages to save and refer back to later. There is so much here I want to make sure I don't forget. 

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

304 pages

Published February 2024 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family’s rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite—and with help from these strong women—Ady learns how to put herself first. So begins her journey toward liberation and imagining a new future. 

The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph that reminds us what is possible when a community bands together to fight for their freedom.

My Thoughts:

In that way that the books we're reading can sometimes have remarkable similarities, I chanced to be reading The American Daughters just as I was listening to Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend. Two books about young women enslaved in the antebellum South but the similarities didn't end there. Both young women were raised by strong women who gave them hope where there seemed no possibility of it. Two young women who find themselves in New Orleans. 

Here there is no supernatural element to allow Ady to escape, only her own strength and a secret society of free and enslaved black women who use their positions, wits, and courage to undermine those who enslave and keep them down. In The American Daughters we see all of the brutality and horror we expect to see in a novel about enslaved people. We see the complicated relationships between slaves, the communities they formed, the ways they found to survive. In Ady, we also see how some enslaved persons had the ability, limited as it was, to move about in cities and how free blacks allowed to flourish while also being kept down at the same time. 

A person can read this book simply for the surface story it tells and enjoy reading about these strong women and the ways they fought back and survived the psychological and physical torture that was their daily life. It would be a good book on that count alone (although the reader might notice some jarring places in the narrative). 

It is always amazing to me the way that authors can find new and original ways to tell stories we thought we already knew. Here Ruffin tells us, early on, that this is the work of a number of people, that it has been added to over time. We are looking at this story from the outside, as people in the future examine the text, trying to determine what is original and true, what has been added, who has the authority to make alterations and additions. It's a work of fiction that makes us question what is true in the nonfiction we read. This book makes me wonder how much of the South's failure might have been because their efforts were being undermined by the very people they were fighting to keep down. Of course, it also makes me question whether or not those other works are accurate, either, relying as they will have done, on the works that survived that time. 

Life: It Goes On - April 28

Happy Sunday! I can, very fortunately, wish you a happy Sunday today because our home was spared from the devastating tornadoes that tore through Nebraska and Iowa on Friday afternoon/evening, one of which caused catastrophic damage in a part of town just north and west of us (in fact, in the neighborhood that Miss H used to live in). In the immediate aftermath of this kind of thing, everyone always says "we're just happy to be alive." Miraculously, everyone is. But in the days that follow, as reality really sinks in, I can't imagine the grief those who have lost everything are feeling. 

People often ask (as I do myself during the depths of winter) why people continue to live in a place where this kind of damage can happen. Here is why: when Mini-him and Miss C reported to the place they were to meet, there were 3,000 people at that location alone. Food trucks are providing free meals to the families affected and to the volunteers, vehicles are lined up along the roads nearby of people waiting to drop off donations. Most tell of all, the emergency shelter has had no one spend the night there because family, friends, and even strangers have stepped up to offer refuge for those impacted. This is how the Midwest responds. Life truly does go on. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Zadie Smith's latest, The Fraud. 

Watched: We spent a good deal of Friday watching the local weather people as the storms moved in. The meteorologists all said they'd seen nothing like it and were too busy reporting on the movements of the tornadic cells to even show footage until much later. Since then, we've seen so much unbelievable footage of the aftermath. 

Read: I finished Percival Everett's James. Highly recommend it. 

Made: Fried potato casserole, homemade macaroni and cheese, taco salad. All while trying to watch our calories. I will happily skimp on calories early in the day for a dinner of homemade mac and cheese!

Enjoyed: Turning in the keys to the apartment my dad lived in for 32 hours and putting an end to a chapter that has been nothing but work. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: We'll head out shortly to take another load to my dad's new place and will spend the next couple of days getting him, finally, settled into the new place. Things will go on the walls, the desk and his computer will get set up, his clothes will get moved into his own dresser and the ugly stuff they provide will move out. It won't be his dream place but it will be homey. 

Thinking About: Everything that needs to be done in my house. And the five-day weekend I have scheduled at the end of May with nothing on the calendar...yet.

Feeling: Happy that Miss H's wisdom teeth removal went off without a hitch and that she's had very little pain. A mama never stops worrying, especially when she can't be right there to help. 

Looking forward to: A couple of quick trips to KC soon. 

Question of the week: How is your weekend going? Are you getting things planted yet, making your gardens and yards look beautiful?

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Maid by Nita Prose

Read by Lauren Ambrose

9 hours, 37 minutes

Published January 2022 by Random House Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. 

Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection. 

But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late? 

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.

My Thoughts: 

I recently saw that the 2nd book in this trilogy will be coming out soon so I decided it was time to get to this one that I've been hearing about for more than two years. Plus, I could get the audiobook from the library right away. So that was a win. But it was the least of the wins with this book. 

Win number two - Lauren Ambrose's reading. I loved it; I can't help but thinking that, had I been reading this in print, Ambrose's voice for Molly is exactly what I would have been hearing in my head. But even better. 

Win number three - this is just a really fun, really sweet book. There's a lot of humor in the book, keeping the book light enough to race through; but also so much heart. My heart went out to Molly as she struggled to know what to do without her Gran, who was her number one fan but also the person who understood her the best and was best able to help Molly navigate in the world. 

Molly doesn't read social cues very well. She doesn't always know when people are trying to hurt her feelings and she doesn't know when people are using her, preying on her desire for companionship. Fortunately, Gran wasn't the only person who understands Molly and knows that she's incapable of the murder of which she stands accused. Molly's not totally naive - when it comes down to it, she'll do what needs to be done to make things right and to protect the people she cares about. Molly has so much to give - she's a hard worker, eager to learn, and a very caring person. Those who mock her would do well to take a lesson from her. 

Some of my favorite books are books with neurodivergent lead characters. We learn so much from them - how to see the world from a different point of view and that we need to give grace to others who aren't "like us." I can't wait to get my hands on the next book to see what happens to Molly next!