'The Great Gatsby' It Is Not
And that’s a good thing, because we focus on the rich too much
Two literary giants, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, supposedly figured out the difference between the rich and the poor:
“The rich are different from you and me.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby
“Yes. They’ve got more money.”
– Ernest Hemingway, author of lots of stuff
What would we do without this explanation? We would all be walking around stroking our chins all day, muttering, “I know there must be some difference between rich and poor people. But what could it be?”
Enough about the rich already
Bookshelves groan under the weight of novels about rich people, because those of us who are poor and obscure apparently like to daydream about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Novels as good as The Great Gatsby and as awful as the typical wealth-fantasy bestseller allow us to peek into the world of the people who have more money. Some of these decadent fantasies (not Gatsby!) can be a little on the gross side.
But how often do we peek into the worlds of the people who lack money? John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is a powerful classic. So is Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I first read that book in sixth grade and have loved it all my life. There are many others.
Adelle Waldman’s Help Wanted is a new one, and I read it, to be honest, mainly because the description of it made me think so much about my own new book, The Trailer Park Rules.
Waldman’s book focuses on the people who come in very early to unload the truck for a fictional big box store. There isn’t just one main character, unless you count Poverty as a character. We get into each character’s head and learn how they ended up depending on a poorly paid part-time job. We see how their work affects everything else in their lives.
My book is set in just the sort of place Waldman’s characters might be expected to call home. There isn’t one main character in Trailer Park, either. Each chapter is told in the voice of a different park resident, and we learn their back stories.
This is the blurb for Help Wanted:
Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive.
Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours—most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies.
The members of Team Movement—including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path—band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.
This is the blurb for Trailer Park:
All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park
For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.
Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.
When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.
Bubble-bursting books
In my Goodreads review of Waldman’s book, I note the importance of Americans getting to know people outside their own bubble:
“You're looking at the action from the outside, understanding what each character is going through, realizing that each of the individuals understands only a portion of what's really happening. If you are part of the working poor, you'll nod. Waldman captures the reality. If you are middle- or upper-class, reading this book will give you a much fuller idea of what American poverty is truly like. It's imperative that Americans start understanding each other. Getting out of your bubble would be great, but reading books like this one that unflinchingly and unromantically look at poverty is a close second.
Warning: Political point ahead
I recently did an interview with my local public radio station, and I’m a little nervous to find out what I said! I’m pretty good with the written word, but not so much with impromptu speaking.
I practiced my talking points, but it’s easy to get me off track. You don’t even have to try to get me to do it – I will jump off-script all by myself. I know I said something about the political divisions in this country and how wealthy, urban liberal people are always being exhorted to try harder to understand the conservative mind, especially small-town Trump supporters. I noted that while politics aren’t overtly discussed in my novel, you can guess how each character would vote.
I am not a wealthy, urban liberal person. I am a working-class, small-town liberal person. But I live in a red area and grew up in a very red area, so I do understand the conservative mind. And what I said in that interview (I think!) is that maybe it’s time red folks try a bit harder to understand what blue folks are saying.
Truly, we all need to try harder
I have the advantage there, because my feet rest in more than one bubble. I’m red by upbringing and current location, but blue by education, inclination and choice. I know people all over the socioeconomic spectrum.
I’ve been writing all my life about the need for everyone to get to know people who are different. My former role as editor of a daily newspaper put me in touch with people who were homeless, with national political leaders, and with everyone in between.
The value of getting to know people in different socioeconomic groups is the same as for straight people getting to know gay people. We have learned that when a straight person gets to know a few openly gay people, it becomes harder for them to vilify them. Many far-right parents have evolved after their beloved child comes out of the closet.
The same thing can happen when different social classes mingle. When we don’t know someone from a given group, our imagination fills in the details. When you meet people from that group, you’ll probably find out that many of your assumptions were dead wrong.
The Trailer Park Rules is not a political book. Neither is Help Wanted. But both books show you accurate depictions of how the poor work and live. Neither book is as joyless as you might think a depiction of poverty might be. Both books are darkly funny and often touching.
You’ll care about many of the characters; you might feel distaste for others. (Waldman’s characters are ultimately more sympathetic than a couple of mine; you’ll love to hate at least one person in Trailer Park even as you root for most of them.)
The plot and climax of Waldman’s book seem low-stakes when looking from the outside, but you can appreciate what vital, life-changing matters these things are to those within it. The climax of Trailer Park is more explosive.
Both books deserve a place on your tablet or nightstand.
About Michelle Teheux
I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is The Trailer Park Rules.
It is an interesting subject, growing up poor, I fought hard not to have that kind of life. To this day I can’t look at ramen noodles without wincing. It was a driving factor for me for most of my life. I took big risks and lost many times. One time losing everything I had and the. Some after 9/11. Deep in debt, business gone, recession looming, but I pulled myself up out of depression and worked my way out of it and build another company. I sold that in 2019. In Feb 2020 I started writing as my main activity. allowing me the time and resources to write without worrying about making money. That was the agreement I made with myself when I was 19. First we make money, then we write. I think the key is, never forgetting where I come from. And remembering it can all be taken away in an instant so be humble, be kind, be generous and be compassionate.
Congratulations on your new book. Sounds like a bubble breaker. As someone who was born into early poverty and then transitioned into middle class stability with exposure to wealth, I watch with deep concern as the American middle class stretches and thins due to relatively stagnant incomes parallel to exorbitant housing, healthcare, and post-secondary education costs. Attending college was key in my experience, as was having professional employment three months post-graduation with real healthcare insurance (no premiums, no deductibles), and manageable loan debt. I’m not sure I could have attended college in today’s economy, let alone gone onto graduate school. Finally, when I read your red-blue identity reflection—I thought: maybe she’s purple! If I have to be anything it’s that, as I think these delineations are co-opted and manipulated in the political propaganda machines to inflame division in the populace so we don’t unite for meaningful change. #letsbepurple