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1. At the beginning of the memoir, Smarsh
writes that, as a child, "I heard a voice unlike the ones in my house or
on the news that told me my place in the world." What did this other
voice tell her? What did the people in her house and on the news say
about her?
2. Smarsh is the product of generations of teen pregnancy on her
mother’s side. She writes that she was like a penny in a purse, "not
worth much, according to the economy, but kept in production." How did
this legacy of teenage pregnancy affect her family’s social and economic
mobility?
3. Smarsh and her brother were each born just weeks before Reagan won an
election, and his economic policies had a tremendous impact on her
childhood. Can you describe what that impact looked like?
4. Smarsh describes an incident in which she, as a toddler, pulled a
chest of drawers onto herself, forcing her barely postpartum mother to
injure herself lifting it up. Smarsh’s father was at work. How does this
accident demonstrate the dangers of rural poverty and the fault lines in
Jeannie and Nick’s relationship? Are the two related?
5. There were many, many car wrecks in the author’s life and in the
lives of members of her family. Why do you think that is?
6. Teresa, Smarsh’s paternal grandmother, had untreated "woman problems"
in her youth, according to Nick. What kinds of problems might he have
been referring to? How was life in rural Kansas different for women than
it was for their farmer husbands?
7. Smarsh writes, "When I was well into adulthood, the United States
developed the notion that a dividing line of class and geography
separated two essentially different kinds of people." Do you think
that’s true? How does Smarsh straddle that line?
8. Betty often said that homeless people should "get a job," even though
she and her family struggled economically—and even though she often gave
money to those same people. How do you think her values were affected by
the class system?
9. Do you believe, as Smarsh writes, that "in America . . . the house is
the ultimate status symbol, and ownership is a source of economic
pride"? What do you think the family’s transience meant to Nick,
Jeannie, Smarsh, and her brother?
10. How did Bob’s newspaper job and middle-class stability affect the
family’s economic situation?
11. Many of the women in Smarsh’s family endured physical violence at
the hands of their boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. In what ways does
gendered violence inhibit economic stability?
12. Smarsh writes that the women in her family had an "old wisdom" that
had more to do with intuition than knowledge or education. Where do you
see this in action in the lives of female characters?
13. Consider the specific reality of Smarsh’s life as a high-achieving
high school student. What pushed her to excel?
14. What social realities did Smarsh meet in college? How was her life
different from those of her fellow students, and how was it similar?
15. Smarsh argues that "this country has failed its children." Do you
agree? How does her story demonstrate that, or fail to?
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