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

Heartland (2018) is both a memoir of Sarah Smarsh’s upbringing in rural Kansas as the daughter of working-class people and an exploration of the class system in America today. The book is subtitled: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth; this hits the core of the book, as Smarsh seeks to use her family’s anecdotes and memories to get to the truth of why mostly honest, hardworking people are unable to break out of poverty for generations.

As a memoir, the book captures not only Smarsh’s own life, but tells the story of her parents, her grandparents, and even her great grandparents. All of these people began life in a similar way: as children of working-class people struggling to make ends meet. Although none of the family is or was ever homeless, they all spend their lives skirting the line between poverty and destitution. Most of them move frequently, either in search of more opportunities or to escape bad circumstances. Few of them other than Smarsh’s step-grandfather Arnie ever experience geographical security for any length of time. All also work hard at physically demanding jobs to get by and to provide for their families.

As an analytical work targeting the socioeconomic class divide in America, the book traces the root of the system from historical, political, and social perspectives. Smarsh considers the evolution of various laws that disproportionately disadvantage or penalize the working class. She also traces the origins of shame—internal and external—associated with being poor in America.

Throughout, Smarsh’s goal is to disprove the popular assumption that a person’s worth is tied to their economic status. She clearly shows that her family and other impoverished people like them do not lack work ethic. In fact, people living in poverty work as hard or harder than most groups, but still have less to show for it. The way that the socioeconomic system in America assigns value to work inherently discourages movement between the classes. Although Smarsh offers no answers about how to fix this flawed system, she does believe in hope for a future of greater equality.