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Book Cover
Periodical
PeriodicalLarge Print Book
Author Smarsh, Sarah, author.

Title Heartland : a memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on earth / Sarah Smarsh.

Publication Info. Waterville, Maine : Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company , 2018.
©2018

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  LP BIO SMARSH    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Main Library - Adult Fiction  LP B SMARSH, SARAH    Check Shelf
Description 441 pages (large print) ; 24 cm
Physical Medium large print rdafs
Series Thorndike Press Large Print Biographies and Memoirs
Thorndike Press large print biographies and memoirs.
Note Originally published: New York : Scribner, 2018.
Summary "An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities, and she explores this idea as lived experience, metaphor, and level of consciousness. Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through her experiences growing up as the daughter of a dissatisfied young mother and raised predominantly by her grandmother on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are given a unique and essential look into the lives of poor and working class Americans living in the heartland. Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, Heartland is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular perils of having less in a country known for its excess. "-- Provided by publisher.
Contents Dear August -- A penny in a purse -- The body of a poor girl -- A stretch of gravel with wheat on either side -- The shame a country could assign -- A house that needs shingles -- A working-class woman -- The place I was from.
Summary During Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the '80s and '90s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities. Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, this is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular perils of having less in a country known for its excess. -- adapted from back cover
Subject SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Rural.
Large type books.
Farmers. (OCoLC)fst00921321
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
Farmers -- Economic conditions. (OCoLC)fst00921329
Working poor. (OCoLC)fst01180666
Genre/Form Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
Subject SOCIAL SCIENCE / Poverty & Homelessness.
Farm life. (OCoLC)fst00921052
Working poor -- Kansas -- Biography.
Farm life -- Kansas.
Farmers -- Kansas -- Biography.
Smarsh, Sarah.
Kansas. (OCoLC)fst01204323
Poor. (OCoLC)fst01071040
Local Subject Poor people -- Kansas -- Biography.
Subject Kansas -- Biography.
Poor -- Kansas -- Biography.
Farmers -- Kansas -- Economic conditions.
Genre/Form Autobiographies.
Added Title Memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on Earth
ISBN 9781432859565 (large print) (hardback)
1432859560 (large print) (hardback)
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