Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh
Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh
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Bone of the Bone
Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class

Author: Sarah Smarsh

Narrator: Sarah Smarsh

Unabridged: 11 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/10/2024


Synopsis

“A must-read for today’s politics” (San Francisco Chronicle), the brilliant and provocative essays that established National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh as one of the most important commentators on America’s class problem are collected in one searing and insightful volume.

In Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh brings her graceful storytelling and incisive critique to the challenges that define our times—class division, political fissures, gender inequality, environmental crisis, media bias, the rural-urban gulf. Smarsh, a journalist who grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college, has long focused on cultural dissonance that many in her industry neglected until recently. Now, this thought-provoking collection of more than thirty of her highly relevant, previously published essays from the past decade (2013–2024)—ranging from personal narratives to news commentary—demonstrates a life and a career steeped in the issues that affect our collective future.

“A compassionate look at working-class poverty in America” (Time), Bone of the Bone is a singular work covering one of the most tumultuous decades in civic life. Timely, filled with perspective-shifting observations, and a pleasure to read, Sarah Smarsh’s essays—on topics as varied as the socioeconomic significance of dentistry, laws criminalizing poverty, fallacies of the “red vs. blue” political framework, working as a Hooters Girl, and much more—are an important addition to any discussion on contemporary America.

About Sarah Smarsh

Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has reported for The New York TimesHarper’s MagazineThe Guardian, and many other publications. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her second book, She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Smarsh is a frequent political commentator and speaker on socioeconomic class. She lives in Kansas.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif on December 23, 2024

Ever since her book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, (link is to my review) was published in 2018, Sarah Smarsh has emerged as the go to person for commentary on socioeconomic class in America. Bone of the Bone is a collection of articles publ......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on June 30, 2024

Through a plucky and bright voice, Smarsh humanizes the working poor and creates space to heal that which is increasingly dividing the American people, both ideologically and socioeconomically. In this tender, raw, and perceptive collection, Sarah Smarsh's essays of the working class are really thei......more

Goodreads review by Hayley on December 09, 2024

UGH ♥️ Sarah Smarsh articulates the central thread and conflict in my life, which is especially poignant for me as a new mother and someone who recently moved back to rural Iowa. Two excellent quotes: “What would I want for my daughter? The idea of you delivered her; she became the girl she loved. Sp......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on December 22, 2024

Sarah Smarsh herself narrates this collection of essays she has written over the last decade or so, and as an uprooted Kansan (Wilson to Great Bend to Salina to Wichita to Kansas City to Southern California (2001), hearing her Kansas accent was like going home every time I listened. My upbringing wa......more

Goodreads review by Cara on September 19, 2024

The quality of the writing was excellent, as expected, but many of the essays challenged me to consider my assumptions, and I thought about them long after closing the book. I'm sure I read a few of these in their original form, but it was quite enjoyable to have them all gathered in one place, and......more


Quotes

"National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh performs a collection of her essays written from 2013–2024. After growing up on a wheat farm in Kansas, Smarsh went on to join academia and found herself writing about her working-class childhood. Drawing connections between such diverse topics as the relationship between socioeconomic status and access to dental care and the fallacies of thinking strictly in terms of red and blue states, Smarsh’s essays are full of sharp observations that are as relevant now as when they were first published. Her clear and direct performance draws the listener in from the first moments of the audiobook. Her essays are full of heart, and her narration captures that emotional depth."