Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth

by Sarah Smarsh

Book Overview

*Finalist for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize*
*Instant New York Times Bestseller*

An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country.

Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1501133098
• ISBN13: 9781501133091
• Release Date: September 2018
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Just okay

Not bad, but certainly not as good as the reviews have hyped. Other reviewers have commented on the strange structure of the book, a letter written to a child that would never be born. I agree with their assessment that it was odd and jarring. I think I would have enjoyed this more if the author didn't spend half the book moralizing on how and why poverty exists in America and instead kept this a strict memoir. The memoir/essay was annoying. While I found myself agreeing with a few of her assessments, her general castigation of the government as the problem of all her family's ills was tiresome. Though, I come to these opinions from the belief that the government is neither the source of all society's ills nor the source of society's salvation. I don't resonate with opinions where the purpose of government is to provide everything a society should need. As a memoir, it was strong and interesting. As an essay, it lacked backing evidence that wasn't anecdotal. Read for a book club. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have finished it.