One Look at Class in Rural America

In today’s podcast, Sarah Smarsh discusses her book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth which is a 2018 National Book Award finalist and a 2022-2023 NEA Big Read title. Smarsh discusses her family background in rural Kansas, intergenerational poverty, and the difficulty of recognizing the impact of class in America. We also talk about her decision to tell the story of her family against a broader background of systemic inequality and of public policies that impact and shape the lives of rural working poor. In this conversation, as in the book, Smarsh combines sharp socioeconomic insights with the deep psychological understanding that comes from a lived experience in poverty.