The problems I had with N&D were that she showed too much contempt for working poor people for failing to live up to an idealized fantasy about she had constructed. She glossed over the transportation issue but flippantly stating she needed a car because no one wants to read about her waiting for a bus, but that was dishonest. No one wants to read about her driving her car to work either. She didn't want to do without a car because it sucks waiting for buses and transferring from one to another starting at 5 AM to get to work at 6:30 AM. It sucks not being in control of that aspect of your life. If she doesn't want the inconvenience of using public transportation I don't judge her negatively for that but I disliked the dishonest reason given for doing so and I think she missed an opportunity to gain much more insight into another aspect of life on the edge of financial catastrophe. I also dislike deliberately deceiving people. She presented herself to her co-workers as something she was not and she did so for personal gain. That does not make one a national treasure. While it would have been a different book why not have working people put their own experiences into words themselves with her help instead of lying to them to gain their trust and then writing about the experience herself? She isn't poor so she can't truly understand being poor so there is not personal failing on that issue. The above is why I am ambivalent about her. She added to some peoples understanding of what it means to be working poor (a good thing) but she did so through being dishonest and in a rather self-aggrandizing manner. Did her way add some insight that is missing from the way someone like Studs Terkel adds to peoples understanding of the same issue? Does Ehrenreich think her personal story is somehow 'better' than the personal stories of real working poor people? If so, why and if not, why not tell their stories rather than fabricate a fiction so the story can be told from a false personal perspective? Since we all acknowledge, as does Ehrenreich, that there is no way she can truly understand the experience of being poor what exactly is gained by the subterfuge that cannot be gained through dispensing with the charade and letting working people tell their own story? Other than self-aggrandizing I mean. Maybe lying to large numbers of working people to gain their confidence so you can write a best-seller is really not such a bad thing and I should not hold such behaviours in the incredibly low regard that I do. I guess I should get with the times and stop holding to antiquated ideas concerning honesty. At least where national treasures are concerned anyway.
John Thornton