However... my community book club selected this as a "different kind of book" for our March book club meeting. For that, I think it fits the bill perfectly. It was different from what we normally read. And while I didn't like the book, I think I'm going to really enjoy the conversation that comes as a result of the reading.
It is impossible not to ask the question "What would I have done?" while reading the book. That's true at the start of the book. And it's just as true at the end of the book. What would I have done? What would I have done if during the stock market crash of 1987... or 2008... or or or... I had lost everything? If I had been forced from my home? If I had to totally and completely recreate myself? I'm not talking about learning to live on less. I'm talking about a complete reversal to my change in circumstances. How would I have managed?
I know the world was a very different place in 1929 and I suppose I'm grateful for that. In the novel 1929, which follows the lives of three young couples and their family and friends after the big stock market crash in October of 1929, the wealthy young couples need to flee their homes literally overnight, knowing that "the bank" (or whoever) was coming in the following day to take everything they own. In the 2000's, that simply wouldn't happen. People can stop payment on their mortgages and it might be months before anyone comes chasing them down - literally - to leave their homes. So much would be different in this day and age.
I also gave considerable thought to how the Depression hit various parts of society in different ways and at different times. Growing up, I'd wonder about how many parents' lives were impacted by the Depression. I'd ask them about it, but having been born in 1927 and 1929, they were unable to tell me if their lives - or the lives of their parents and families had been changed dramatically by the stock market crash. What they were born into was their normal. From conversations I had with my mom, I know that she wondered as well. But she had a wonderfully middle class (or upper middle class) early life and she had no recollection of any of the "bad things" that one might read about the Depression impacting her family. In this novel, it was made clear that those who worked in the stock market and those heavily invested in the stock market came out the worst very quickly. And it took months for the hardships to really trickle down to those who were already living the hard knock life prior to the Crash. Slum lords prospered. Those who provided manual labor didn't seem to be hit as hard until scarcity of food became a problem.
I suppose there are very few, if any, people alive today who can give a firsthand recounting of what it was like to live through the Great Depression. No one who can say, "This is how it really was." I don't think M.L. Gardner did the best job at telling us what it was like back then, but her novel is a great starting off point for a discussion about it.
I plan to update this post after our book club discussion on March 14th.
(In case you're following me on Goodreads, you probably noticed that I finished Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance last weekend. You might have also noticed that I didn't give it a "star review." I also haven't posted anything about it here. I've sat down to start blogging several times, but I'm still thinking about that book and trying to decide how I really felt about it. That review should come shortly.)
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