Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope - Hardcover

Kristof, Nicholas D.; WuDunn, Sheryl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525655085 ISBN 13: 9780525655084

Publisher: Knopf, 2020

Synopsis

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea--deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans--to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure.

With stark poignancy and political dispassion, Tightrope draws us deep into an "other America." The authors tell this story, in part, through the lives of some of the children with whom Kristof grew up, in rural Yamhill, Oregon, an area that prospered for much of the twentieth century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write about, ranging from the Dakotas and Oklahoma to New York and Virginia. But here too are stories about resurgence, among them: Annette Dove, who has devoted her life to helping the teenagers of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as they navigate the chaotic reality of growing up poor; Daniel McDowell, of Baltimore, whose tale of opioid addiction and recovery suggests that there are viable ways to solve our nation's drug epidemic. Taken together, these accounts provide a picture of working-class families needlessly but profoundly damaged as a result of decades of policy mistakes. With their superb, nuanced reportage, Kristof and WuDunn have given us a book that is both riveting and impossible to ignore.

About this title

About the Author

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF and SHERYL WUDUNN, the first husband and wife to share a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, have coauthored four previous books: A Path Appears, Half the Sky, Thunder from the East, and China Wakes. They were awarded a Pulitzer in 1990 for their coverage of China, as well as the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. Now an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Kristof was previously bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. He won his second Pulitzer in 2006 for his columns on Darfur. WuDunn worked at the Times as a business editor and foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Beijing, and now works in finance and consulting. They live near New York City.

Review

“While acknowledging the need for personal responsibility—and for aid from private charities—the authors make a forceful case that the penalties for missteps fall unequally on the rich and poor in spheres that include education, health care, employment, and the judicial system; to end the injustices, the government also must act. . . An ardent and timely case for taking a multipronged approach to ending working-class America's long decline.”—Kirkus  

“This is an unflinching book that illustrates the central, confounding American paradox — in a country that purports to root for the underdog, too often we exalt the rich and we punish the poor. With thorough reporting and extraordinary compassion, Kristof and WuDunn tell the stories of those who fall behind in the world’s wealthiest country, and find not an efficient first-world safety net created by their government, but a patchwork of community initiatives, perpetually underfunded and run by tired saints. And yet amid all the tragedy and neglect, Kristof and WuDunn conjure a picture of how it could all get better, how it could all work. That’s the miracle of Tightrope, and why this is such an indispensable book.”—Dave Eggers, author of The Captain and the Glory

"A deft and uniquely credible exploration of rural America, and of other left-behind pockets of our country. One of the most important books I've read on the state of our disunion."—Tara Westover, author of Educated    
 
“A quarter of the chums Nicholas Kristof rode to school with in the 1970s in sundown rural Yamhill, Oregon, are dead, the authors of this riveting book tell us, from drugs, alcohol, obesity, reckless accidents and suicide. In this deeply empathic, important, and timely book, the authors conceive of such childhood friends and others like them across rural America as unwitting shock absorbers of cruel trends for which we have yet to acknowledge collective responsibility. Read this book and pass it on!” —Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of Strangers In Their Own Land

"Tightrope is a heroic, harrowing, and at times tender, look at the high wire act that is survival for too many people today. Kristof and WuDunn know there are no easy solutions here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take action, whether by pushing for better policies, or changing our own attitudes. This book will shake you—it did me—and that is the point."—Bono

“This is a must-read that will shake you to your core. It’s a Dante-esque tour of a forgotten America, told partly through the kids who rode on Kristof’s old school bus in rural Oregon. A quarter are now dead, and others are homeless, in prison or struggling with drugs. They made bad choices, but so did America, in ways that hold back our entire country. Tightrope shows how we can and must do better.”—Katie Couric 

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 0525655085
• ISBN 13: 9780525655084
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320