Anonymous
Posted July 3, 2008
Jacqueline Homan¿s obsession is poverty in America, and her enthusiasm for telling her story leaps off the page. This decidedly non-fictional tale is told from the inside-looking-out perspective of a person for whom economic survival has been difficult. The author was orphaned at age two, ejected into the street at age thirteen, and obtained a decent-paying, blue-collar job after high school, only to have her new career sidelined by an auto accident after less than two years. A number of years later, Ms. Homan graduated from college with a BA just in time to join the lovely, exciting George Bush job market! With several references to Barbara Ehrenreich¿s Bait & Switch and a lesser-known author named Dr. Donna Beegle, the author works diligently at describing in explicit detail the plight of lower-income people in a nation full of billionaires. I grandly applaud Ms. Homan for the dedication with which she has worked to tell her story, and in particular, the much larger story of why and how we got into this economic tsunami in the face of all sorts of highly educated economic specialists telling us how wonderful it is to be a member in good standing in the richest country in the world. The author¿s amateur economic perspective is quite refreshing, however, the amateurish design and editing of her first book leaves a bit to be desired. If the author had expended as much effort in the execution of her project as she did in her enthusiasm for the subject matter, this would have been a five-star review. As it is, the page count is misleading due to the application of extreme margins on each page, the author¿s research could have been more properly documented, and the typos were too numerous. This is a very commendable first effort, and I have a lot of upbeat, good feelings about a young, unfortunate woman dedicating this much of her time to tell her story, one that all Americans need to hear with a lot more sincere compassion than we all have since The Reagan Revolution dismantled the safety nets out from under all of us.
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Posted April 23, 2008
I got this book for my dad. It tells the uncomfortable truths about poverty and how class bias ensures that most of America's poor don't have a fair chance to improve their lives. The poor often get held back even when they try by doing 'all the right things'. This book also acknowledges the lack of help for poor child-less people. 'Dimwits' also explains how the middle class have been duped by the ultra rich. A must-read!
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Posted March 21, 2008
Jacqueline S. Homan produces a seamless blend of first person perspective on what it like to grow up on the lower rungs of America's class ladder and a wider social consciousness about class issues in general. People who have had the good fortune of being raised in a stable family environment in even the lower levels of America's middle class have a hard time understanding what it's like to have spent a lifetime on the edge... an edge where no matter how hard you try, the steps that you manage to climb can suddenly be yanked out from under you by happenstance with no safety net available to fall into. And of course, once you DO fall without that net you land in a pit so deep that even years of hard work stand little chance of pulling you back up. Middle and upper class kids can goof off and still trust that eventually Mom and Dad will see to it that they not only have a roof over their heads but will have at least several chances at a good education and good jobs. Talent and brains help of course, but they're not really necessary when you've got the right 'start'. Take a kid whose family was not there for them, or who grew up within the welfare system, or who suffered borderline disabilities that were not adequate to qualify for aid but were more than adequate to get in the way of a scholarship or a good job, or any combination of even bits of the above in conjunction with a devastating illness or accident... and you have a life disaster that may never truly be 'fixed'. Ms. Homan poignantly offers cameos from her own life, images of being orphaned, of struggling against reading difficulties due to late-diagnosed dyslexia, of an accident that left her nearly paralyzed and unable to hold any job that requires extensive walking or standing 'no burger-flipping safety basket available!', and widens these personal experiences to observations on how a largely unrecognized class system in 'classless' America works to 'keep people in their place' despite their often heroic efforts. The title of the book is wonderfully appropriate: even 'Dimwits' will have a greater appreciation for the reality of American Classism after reading this book!
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