Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth

Author Sarah Smarsh came from a long line of teenage pregnancies on her mother’s side and hard-working Kansas farmers on her father’s side. Despite their work ethic, her family has lived in poverty for generations. This memoir was written to help Smarsh unpack the reason so many in America end up “working hard and being broke.” The book revolves around the conversations and promises she imagines she would have made to August, the baby she might have had as a teenager if things had ended up differently. Smarsh believes the decision not to be a teenage mother, and the fact that she didn’t have to move 48 times before she graduated high school like her mother did, allowed her to escape poverty. Reminiscent of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, this is a titillating account of how our country fails to support the farmers that feed us and shames those living below the poverty line. Heartland is a triumph of a book and one of the best memoirs I have read.