Full house last night ...

Smarsh begins to address the crowd last night.

... at the Hudson Library & Historical Society to see/hear author Sarah Smarsh read from/talk about her 2018 memoir, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. (Coincidentally, yesterday was the first day of release for the paperback edition (still $18!) of her work, which was a finalist for a National Book Award in Nonfiction.)

Among those in the impressive crowd were Joyce and I. (And two of Joyce’s former Hiram College colleagues, Steve Zabor and Kathryn Craig )

We got there about a half-hour early--and were glad we did. The place filled up quickly, and we got the sort of seats I like: one an aisle-seat (for, uh, Old Man Needs) and near the back so that, after the presentation, I could quickly exit and be near the head of the line for the signing--if not the first. (Last night, Number One!)

Smarsh began in wise fashion, asking how many of us had already read the book (about 1/3, it seems), so she filled in some background on herself (grew up on a farm in Kansas), on her life (rural poverty--but always with food and a roof).

She talked a lot about income inequality, about poverty in America, about how most poor people in fact work very hard (2-3 jobs for many); still, many are left behind as the wealthier accrue more and more. She reminded us of our obligation to help one another. Yet, as she observes in the book, we often shame/blame the poor for ... being poor--as if that's what they want. As if they're lazy, etc.

She read a few pages from her opening chapter--introducing us to her characters, to the land, to the situation(s).

Then ... Q&A, while I hustled outside to the rotunda where I would be, as I've said, Number One!

I was impressed with her presentation. She's articulate, both on and off the page, and, as Joyce noted to me afterward, she was very agile/sensitive about income inequality in a community like Hudson, which is hardly a small Kansas farming town. (Hey, we do have a Farmers' Market on Saturday! That counts, doesn't it?)

I had only a cloth edition of the book, so I bought a paperback (yes, both are first printings!) and got her to sign them both while telling her that I'd grown up in Oklahoma, just 50 miles from the Kansas-Oklahoma border. I told her how my great-grandfather--a former farmer near the end of his life, living in Okla. with his daughter (my grandmother Osborn)--had loved Old Overholt rye whiskey. But at the time, Oklahoma was a "dry" state: no (legal) booze. So when he ran out of his elixir, my dad had to drive to Kansas to buy a refill--50 miles each way. My grandparents--teetotalers, both--would not have done so. So Dad helped lubricate my great-grandfather's final months ...

Anyway, a great night at the Hudson Library--and thanks once more, to archivist Gwen Mayer, who organizes these events, who brings to our little town some big literary names.