And what made it so darn good? It’s fascinating to find books outside of your usual realm that make you question why you have those preferences in the first place.
A book I read last year that I absolutely loved was Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence. The author, Rachel Sherman, is a sociology prof at the New School. She interviews a broad swath of the very wealthy living in NYC (a mix of earners and inheritors, incomes typically in the millions).
Her observation is that many conflicts that come with wealth are ‘conflicts about how to be both wealthy and morally worthy’, particularly at a time of unprecedented inequality. Topics ranged from the cultural legitimacy of the middle class, to normalization of affluence, to separating identity from purchase behavior.
I was totally sucked in, perhaps in a voyeur-istic way (very similar to the array of ‘the super wealthy suck’ stories that have been popular in TV and movies this year) to her persona-building. She doesn’t paint her subjects as silly rich people, but as complex people who want the best for themselves and their families, using this desire for good to ignore many of the harmful ways they inhibit society. Of course, her interviewees range in their consciousness about their place in society.
Even cooler is that Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, one of my most-recommended books, gives a shout out to Uneasy Street before the story starts! Reid said it was very informative to how she wrote wealthy, well-meaning, but harmful, characters. Very cool to see how nonfiction can so directly inform powerful fiction writing.
Would love to hear from fiction lovers what nonfiction books have a place in their heart!