Welcome to the Trailer Park!

It might not be what you think

I grew up in a trailer.

It wasn’t in a trailer park, but on a large lot in a small town. I was talking to my dad about this the other day, and he said he and my mother bought it used in 1965 for a couple thousand bucks, lived in it for 14 years and sold it for about the same price. 

“It was an expensive trailer when it was new,” he said. It had solid wood paneling, not the cheap stuff. I remember it well. The kitchen appliances and sink were turquoise – I’d kill to have them today. The bathroom fixtures were salmon. 

Once my sister moved out of her crib, she and I shared bunk beds in the tiny bedroom. It was so small that the pocket door would no longer close once we put in the bunk beds, so I grew up without much privacy.

Step into a different world.

This novel invites you into the lives of the families living on one street in a trailer park. People live in bubbles and have no idea how others live. We are constantly shown the lives of rich celebrities. Nobody is presenting the lives of the poor. Who cares about the poor? After all, they’re mostly lazy moochers, right? No, they’re not.

This week I published The Trailer Park Rules. This is a book about poor people and the system. Right at the top of the book, I give this “quote”: 

“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 at a dying newspaper with one dream left. 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 change their predicament. Darren is a disabled man with a dark past just trying to enjoy his life. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Kaitlyn 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, the trailer park manager, runs it 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 rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules!

I am, of course, hoping to entice you into buying a copy.

But I am never comfortable asking for money. This is a newsletter about income inequality – am I seriously going to refuse to let poor people read my work? No. That’s why I leave it up to the reader whether they want to pay for this newsletter. 

Subscribe and pay if you can afford to and think it’s worth it. Otherwise, subscribe without paying. Some people do pay, and I’m so thankful for that – you’re probably already aware that writing is not exactly a lucrative career for most of us not named Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. 

So here’s my deal: I’m giving you a link to purchase the book. The ebook is available on preorder; the paperback is out right now. But also, if you’d like to read this book but can’t easily afford it, I will send you a link for one free download via a service called Bookfunnel. I’m not going to ask you for anything in return. You don’t have to prove to me what your income is or anything like that. I trust you. You don’t have to promise to leave a review, either. It’s my gift, and I hope you like it.

To get a freebie, email me at michelleteheux@gmail.com. Please put in the subject line “Trailer Park Rules” so it doesn’t get lost in the sea of emails. Allow me a few days, please, and I’ll send you a gift link.

I’m excited about this book. It treats poor people as real people dealing with the kinds of struggles people in poverty deal with all the time. If you’ve never lived in poverty, this book will open your eyes.

About Michelle Teheux:

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or toss me some encouragement. I also write on Medium and have a new book, The Trailer Park Rules.