Running for Your Life: Prosperity and Amity

When it comes to good titles, this one, by journalist Eliza Griswold scores big-time.

Because these two towns a few hours drive out of Pittsburgh deserve the ink that Griswold spills on this book published in June 2018.

The subtitle, “One Family and the Fracturing of America,” takes away the guesswork.

Want to get a taste of what it is really like to be on the front lines in America’s resource growth economy?

Do you feel, at the end of the day, that local, state or federal governments are working to your benefit?

Does it stand to reason that the same old arguments from the same old political parties will find any traction in a places like Prosperity and Amity, where families are fractured, not in the way that so many commentators feel free to posit, i.e., as a matter of character of strength – by being strung out on opioids in jobless wastelands?

In what seems the endless campaign, we are less than 13 months away from the next national election.

“Prosperity and Amity” is no “Hillbilly Elegy.” This is the real deal. These are real heroes here. Told in a slow-moving book that pays homage to the noble character of the family members who Griswold came to know during her years writing about natural gas developers and their neighbors.

Next: Running for Your Life: A Subway Poem


0 comments: