Litttle Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Students have been reading Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You for their summer reading assignment and her newest, LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, will be in our library soon.  Shaped by multiple narrators and filled with suspense, this new title received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal AND Publishers Weekly. The setting is the late 1990’s in an insular suburban community near Cleveland, Ohio called Shaker Heights where “there were rules, many rules, about what you could and could not do.” And the secrets abound, particularly amongst two sets of family members: Mia Warren and her teenage daughter, Pearl, newcomers who rent from society matron and investigative reporter wannabe, Elena Richardson. Elena and her lawyer husband have four teenage children: sons named Trip and Moody (both of whom are attracted to Pearl) and daughters Lexie and Izzy (both of whom turn to Mia as a confidante).

This is a book about dysfunctional family life and motherhood, about questionable decisions made for good reasons, about hasty assumptions, about privilege and getting what you want, about trust and betrayal, and about the many secrets we keep. Overall, readers (including teens) will find much to consider and debate, including the pros and cons of adoption for a baby with Asian heritage, the consequences of an abortion and premarital sex, and pressure from peers and parents. One character even explicitly reflects on the problem with rules: “they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things.  When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.” LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE is highly recommended.

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

On Labor Day it seems fitting to write a review of an important new book, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, which explores the state of working class Americans through the experiences of Vance’s family, friends and neighbors.  An elegy is a piece of writing expressing sadness and J.D. Vance, who grew up with an “address” in Middletown, Ohio and a “home” in rural Appalachia near Jackson, Kentucky, clearly identifies with and mourns the passing of hillbilly culture shared amongst the Scots-Irish working class like his grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw. He says, “Our elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.”  Vance’s memoir, over which readers will both cry and laugh, is one of the best non-fiction books I have read so far this year. David Brooks of The New York Times calls Hillbilly Elegy “essential reading for this moment in history.”

Vance’s life was filled with disruption – he has had three legal names and his drug addicted mother was married five or six times, resulting in frequent moves (roughly once per year).  The constant for him was the relatively close presence of his grandparents, whose pride, loyalty and hard-working ethic ultimately drove him to excel at Ohio State and Yale Law School. Vance sees himself as a “cultural emigrant” and his very readable best-seller provides key insights into a lifestyle that does not often touch other Americans. Yet, his writing is also very relate-able, especially when he speaks of resilient children, “kids who prosper despite an unstable home because they have the social support of a loving adult.” Or when he describes the community’s “deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society…. becoming more and more mainstream.”

The statistics are staggering; Vance notes,“Nearly a third of the town lives in poverty, a figure that includes about half of Jackson’s children.”And, later he refers to a national study which found, “among those with a college degree or more, fewer than half had experienced an ACE [Adverse Childhood Experience or traumatic childhood event]. Among the working class, well over half had at least one ACE, while about 40 % had multiple ACEs.”

Vance writes at length about identity and I hope that our teachers and students read his book and then probe relevant quotes like:

• “I knew even as a child that there were two separate sets of mores and social pressures.  My grandparents embodied one type: old-fashioned, quietly faithful, self-reliant, hardworking.   My mother and, increasingly, the entire neighborhood embodied another: consumerist, isolated, angry, distrustful.”
• “One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies, but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.”

Do plan to read the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. A sample excerpt is linked from this page.  Add to the conversation by looking, for example, at another recent New York Times article about the impact of the zip code where you grow up (contrast suburban Chicago counties with Breathitt County, Kentucky).  Or read The Atlantic’s analysis of factors impacting the support for Trump in the Presidential election.  Or listen to the almost hour long podcast interview with J. D. Vance from KQED.

Added October 23, 2016: Review of Homestretch, a video  documentary about homeless teens in Chicago.