deborah_m_foster's reviews
76 reviews

I've read other reviews of this book as there are many at this point. One of the critiques I consistently hear is that she couldn't have remembered the details of her life at such a young age and that she exaggerated or made things up. I'm here to tell you, I can remember vividly almost everything that happened when I was age 4. I'm not sure about 3, because I didn't have anything traumatic happen then. I believe your memory kicks in when you have a trauma at a young age. I read this book because people who knew my family growing up insisted I read this. They kept saying, "Do it, your mother is in it!" They were right. My dad shared some similarities with Ms. Walls, but not the violence or drunkenness or sociability. Anyhow, as to embellishing her story, I doubt she did much of that. Her story rang SO true to my life experience, it was scary.

As a daughter of a man with schizoaffective disorder, I found this book very compelling. My family's story is not the same as his, but many of the experiences of mental illness in the family are explored. I really liked the book for I suppose were personal reasons. It also helps explain how people end up homeless.

It is critical that Northern white people understand their heritage of racism so they don't go thinking it is a Southern problem. Especially in light of the Huffington Post article, which was a 24/7 post, about the worst cities for African Americans which used census data and other data to show Midwestern cities were largely the worst cities. This book is engaging, heartbreaking, and important for Americans to read.

This was the book I needed to read 30 years ago. It would have helped me understand so much about my own family's social class situation. I don't appreciate it any less for having gotten my hands on it decades later than I would have hoped. It is the history of the United States from the perspective of the underclass. It is the truth about opportunity in this country if you haven't been asked to face the class system head on. What I appreciated the most was that my family experienced downward mobility when my father became sick. He turned yellow when he got sick because his liver was involved. The author talks about how the white trash people were yellow. This particular connection was poignant for me. I won't give away any spoilers, but the book is full of interesting facts from history that I never knew. My jaw dropped more than one time.