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Poverty as a social issue
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From: Shpatron_at_aol.com
Date: Mon, 09 May 2011 16:34:01 -0400 (EDT)
Kerry Madden, whose Maggie Valley trilogy I greatly admire, inspired me to comment about my own “Hard Pan” trilogy, set in a contempo rary rural community of California’s high Mojave Desert. In “The Higher Power of Lucky,” Hard Pan’s reside nts try to make their government surplus food commodities more palatable. Lucky uses discarde d Altoids tins from the town dump for her specimen collection. In “ Lucky for Good” (August 2011) a fence is built from cast-off bed springs an d in “Lucky Breaks” old teakettles decorate a street post. Visitors from Lo s Angeles discover there is no cell phone reception. Without romanticizing poverty or its attendant miseries, and without making it the overbearing issue of the books, I try to envision the inter ior life of a resilient girl for whom such circumstances are a given. She is, at the beginning, obsessed with keeping her survival kit backpack with her at all times; eventually she realizes that love, something we all n eed in or der to survive and to thrive, cannot be packed into a kit. I hear from readers who ask if Hard Pan is really their own town whose name I've changed. The vulnerability of these children is evident, as is
their eagerness to read more about Hard Pan. They see themselves in the
stories: a tremendous compliment and validation for me. Thanks for a fascinating discussion; it’s an honor to participate . Susan Patron
Received on Mon 09 May 2011 04:34:01 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 09 May 2011 16:34:01 -0400 (EDT)
Kerry Madden, whose Maggie Valley trilogy I greatly admire, inspired me to comment about my own “Hard Pan” trilogy, set in a contempo rary rural community of California’s high Mojave Desert. In “The Higher Power of Lucky,” Hard Pan’s reside nts try to make their government surplus food commodities more palatable. Lucky uses discarde d Altoids tins from the town dump for her specimen collection. In “ Lucky for Good” (August 2011) a fence is built from cast-off bed springs an d in “Lucky Breaks” old teakettles decorate a street post. Visitors from Lo s Angeles discover there is no cell phone reception. Without romanticizing poverty or its attendant miseries, and without making it the overbearing issue of the books, I try to envision the inter ior life of a resilient girl for whom such circumstances are a given. She is, at the beginning, obsessed with keeping her survival kit backpack with her at all times; eventually she realizes that love, something we all n eed in or der to survive and to thrive, cannot be packed into a kit. I hear from readers who ask if Hard Pan is really their own town whose name I've changed. The vulnerability of these children is evident, as is
their eagerness to read more about Hard Pan. They see themselves in the
stories: a tremendous compliment and validation for me. Thanks for a fascinating discussion; it’s an honor to participate . Susan Patron
Received on Mon 09 May 2011 04:34:01 PM CDT
