Bone of the Bone

Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class

Sarah Smarsh

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2024
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781668055618
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

“A must-read for today’s politics” (San Francisco Chronicle), the brilliant and provocative essays that established National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh as one of the most important commentators on America’s class problem are collected in one searing and insightful volume.

In Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh brings her graceful storytelling and incisive critique to the challenges that define our times—class division, political fissures, gender inequality, environmental crisis, media bias, the rural-urban gulf. Smarsh, a journalist who grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college, has long focused on cultural dissonance that many in her industry neglected until recently. Now, this thought-provoking collection of more than thirty of her highly relevant, previously published essays from the past decade (2013–2024)—ranging from personal narratives to news commentary—demonstrates a life and a career steeped in the issues that affect our collective future.

“A compassionate look at working-class poverty in America” (Time), Bone of the Bone is a singular work covering one of the most tumultuous decades in civic life. Timely, filled with perspective-shifting observations, and a pleasure to read, Sarah Smarsh’s essays—on topics as varied as the socioeconomic significance of dentistry, laws criminalizing poverty, fallacies of the “red vs. blue” political framework, working as a Hooters Girl, and much more—are an important addition to any discussion on contemporary America.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. How I Moved Twenty-One Times Before College: ‘Parcel’, 2013
• 2. Highway Construction May Unearth Human Remains: ‘The Huffington Post’, 2013
• 3. Dear Daughter, Your Mom: ‘The Morning News’, 2014
• 4. Freedom Mandate: ‘Guernica’, 2014
• 5. Poor Teeth: ‘Aeon’, 2014
• 6. Lede, Nutgraph, and Body: ‘Aeon’, 2015
• 7. Poverty, Pride, and Prejudice: NewYorker.com, 2015
• 8. Linguistic Notice for Homo Sapiens Heretofore Known as “Pussies” and “Little Bitches”: ‘McSweeney’s’, 2015
• 9. Believe It: ‘Creative Nonfiction’, 2015
• 10. The First Person on Mars: ‘Vela’, 2015
• 11. The New Migrants: ‘Texas Observer’, 2016
• 12. The Wind Doesn’t Stop at Customs: ‘On Being’, 2016
• 13. Dangerous Idiots: ‘The Guardian’, 2016
• 14. The Jump: ‘Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living’, 2017
• 15. Blood Brother: ‘Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation’, 2017: ‘VQR’, 2017
• 16. The Uprising of Women in “Red States” Is Just Beginning: ‘The Cut’, 2018
• 17. The Winter Wheat I Helped Raise: ‘Pacific Standard’, 2018
• 18. Writing Assignment: ‘The Guardian’, 2018
• 19. Liberal Blind Spots Are Hiding the Truth: ‘The New York Times’, 2018
• 20. At the Precise Geographic Heart of the Dark-Money Beast: ‘The Guardian’, 2018
• 21. Blue Wave in Kansas: ‘The New York Times’, 2018
• 22. Brain Gain: ‘The New York Times’, 2019
• 23. Chronicling a Community, and a Country, in Economic Crisis: ‘The New York Times’, 2020
• 24. I Am Burning with Fury and Grief: ‘The New York Times’, 2020
• 25. In Defense of Populism: ‘Columbia Journalism Review’, 2020
• 26. How Is Arguing with Trump Voters Working Out for You?: ‘The Guardian’, 2020
• 27. Rural Route: NationalGeographic.com, 2020
• 28. Revision: ‘The New Territory’, 2021
• 29. Extraction: ‘The Atlantic’, 2021
• 30. What to Do with Our Covid Rage: ‘The New York Times’, 2021
• 31. In Celebration of Rare and Exquisite Accuracy from Hollywood: ‘The Guardian’, 2022
• 32. Shelterbelt: ‘The New York Times’, 2022
• 33. In the Running: ‘Harper’s’, 2022
• 34. For My Lover: ‘Oxford American’, 2022
• 35. The Butchering Shed: ‘The New York Times’, 2022
• 36. Unwanted Gifts: 2024
• Note on Original Publications
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright