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The View from Flyover Country
The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America | Sarah Kendzior
"A collection of sharp-edged, humanistic pieces about the American heartland...Passionate pieces that repeatedly assail the inability of many to empathize and to humanize." Kirkus From the St. Louisbased journalist often credited with first predicting Donald Trumps presidential victory. In 2015, Sarah Kendzior collected the essays she reported for Al Jazeera and published them as The View from Flyover Country, which became an ebook bestseller and garnered praise from readers around the world. Now, The View from Flyover Country is being released in print with an updated introduction and epilogue that reflect on the ways that the Trump presidency was the certain result of the realities first captured in Kendziors essays. A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in Americas overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, race relations, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary reading for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion. Please put everything aside and try to get ahold of Sarah Kendziors collected essays, The View from Flyover Country. I have rarely come across writing that is as urgent and beautifully expressed. What makes Kendziors writing so truly important is [that] it . . . documents where the problem lies, by somebody who lives there.The Wire Sarah Kendzior is as harsh and tenacious a critic of the Trump administration as youll find. She isnt some new kid on the political block or a controversy machine. . . .Rather she is a widely published journalist and anthropologist who has spent much of her life studying authoritarianism. Columbia Tribune
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HeyT
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#BookReport
This week I only managed to finish my at work audiobook but I‘ve also made significant progress in Daughter of the Forest. I also started Borderline for a book club buddy read but am holding it back as a reward for finishing some of my challenge reads.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to finish Daughter of the Forest and get well into Watership Down. I‘m also planning to work on Hiding in Plain Sight in audio at work.

Kyndrill I loved “Daughter of the Forest” and also highly recommend its sequel! 2y
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HeyT
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Pickpick

I did this in audio and found that Kendzior‘s sincerity really shone with her narration. The essays are still relevant even though they are nearly a decade old and I find that infuriating. The topics get to the heart of systemic injustices in America and the ways that people have just become complacent with the status quo despite the real harm that they are enduring. It really made me want to engage more in any little way I can.

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BarbaraTheBibliophage
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Pickpick

This is a solid group of essays. Sure, they were written a bit ago. But, sadly, we are still dealing with the issues she writes about, and plenty have gotten worse since 2016. So they felt relevant for me, even though her featured events are old news. Her writing is readable, but her narration just so-so. I‘m anxious to listen to her podcast, Gaslit Nation though.

Full review http://www.TheBibliophage.com
#thebibliophage2019 #letterv #litsyatoz

LapReader Coal seam gas is currently making its way through one of my sister‘s properties in Australia and they are powerless to stop it despite a united front against it from the community. 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @LapReader How awful! There are natural gas pipelines coming through our county. And despite protests, were also stuck. It‘s so sad. 😢 5y
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BarbaraTheBibliophage
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Well, I‘m almost finished with this so I thought I‘d let you know I‘ve been reading it. I‘ve been following her on Twitter for a while, and this is just as insightful, if significantly more dated.

Megabooks I agree! I enjoyed it, but it‘s hard to read political nonfiction more than about 9 months old and not find it dated. Still, I thought the essays were insightful. 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @Megabooks I‘m actually finding the higher education essays to be the most interesting. I know a few people who are adjuncts. And our granddaughter is applying to colleges this year, aiming to major in French. I‘d like to pass these essays on to her and her parents, since (to me, anyway) they feel applicable to her life decisions. 5y
Megabooks @BarbaraTheBibliophage Agreed. I had a friend who was an adjunct in the Communications department at UT and she had to be a sorority mom and teach yoga on the side to make ends meet. There‘s so much wrong with higher education in the US. 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @Megabooks There sure is. Your friend probably didn‘t get insurance benefits either. So much wrong! 5y
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AmberWB
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Pickpick

Well- if I wasn‘t already fired up about the state of our country prior to reading this, I am now!! Excellent read. The book is a compilation of essays Kendzior had published for Al Jazeera, so there are times that some of the things she writes about can seem a bit repetitive—-but they SHOULD be, because they are important!! 👇👇👇👇

AmberWB The final essay really hit me, as it was about the importance of complaining. Kendzior writes, “The absence of complaining should be taken as a sign that something is rotting in a society.” Something to remember whenever we are being told to leave the US if we aren‘t happy with it. 5y
Soubhiville I love your mug so much!!! 5y
Megabooks This is a fantastic book! 5y
AmberWB @Soubhiville 😁 One of my coworkers had one and I was DETERMINED to find one for myself! Ebay to the rescue!! I ❤️ Hopper. 😊 5y
CoffeeNBooks I love that mug! 5y
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AmberWB
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👆👆👆👆👆👆 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Megabooks 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 5y
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8little_paws
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Panpan

Look, I'm on the same page as Kendzior in many aspects. But this collection is flawed. 1. It's not edited, it's just an anthology of al-Jazeera essays from 2013-15ish, and focuses heavily on academia and freelancing. Not "the view from flyover country". It's very repetitive. And 2013-15 issues are pretty old hat to anyone paying attention. Skip this collection, read a few of her writings online instead.

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8little_paws
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Check out the hobbit mcmansion I found on my walk! Tagged book is my current audiobook..... honestly it's pretty dated for 2019 and isn't saying anything new but it's not bad either.....

Texreader That‘s so neat! 5y
JoScho What an amazing home! 5y
stacybmartin That is wonderful! 💙 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa Neat home! I liked the book too, I was kind of disappointed that it wasn‘t MORE dated, why are some things issues we just can‘t seem to address and get past. 5y
Avanders Ooh 😍 5y
sprainedbrain Gorgeous! That roof❤️ 5y
Tanisha_A That is so pretty! 😍 5y
8little_paws @Riveted_Reader_Melissa dated as in, everyone's already heard this stuff in 2018 or whenever it was published. This collection should have come out like 12-18 months past article pub dates, they're mostly from 2013, 2014. A very different time. 5y
Palimpsest That house 😍! 5y
crazyspine This is insane! 5y
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Daisey
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Pickpick

I‘m giving this a pick, but I‘m somewhat torn. I appreciated what the author had to say, and I felt she presented points well. However, I also felt the collection was more repetitive and less focused on “flyover country” than I expected. As a lifelong Missouri resident, I was looking forward to essays that clearly discussed Midwestern examples. Except for a few, I felt these could have been written anywhere in the U.S.

#audiobook #nonfiction

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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One more for my #Nonfiction2019

I‘m counting it for “Something From Another Point of View”

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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gradcat WOW! 😲 👍 ♥️ (edited) 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Pickpick

The essays collected here may be from a few years ago now, but they are no less timely or topical...sadly for us. They chronicle the disappearing middle class, even in what were once considered well paid careers, rising racism, lack of resources from intellectual to human necessities like water. I found the audio on Scribd, posted some of the quotes I could find from Google Books, but I‘ll definitely be picking up a print copy as well to revisit.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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ReadingOver50 I feel like reading this book would only make me angry 😠 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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So even if there is life saving info for you, already researched and published, you and your lawyers, doctors, etc, may never see it or even know it exists because it is behind a paywall!

I‘m suddenly missing my college research in the library days, where I could look things up in a card catalog, find the printed journal, and read or photocopy the article for myself....and I never thought I‘d miss those days.

jpmcwisemorgan I saw something a year ago or so about some scientists publishing directly online to get information to people. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @jpmcwisemorgan Yes, she talks about that in one of the essays.... I‘ll tag you there... 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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No wonder elites are getting a bad wrap, even they are being ripped off by higher ups and no information is getting out.

This reminds me of the old saying, a lie can travel around the world faster than the truth can escape from behind its paywall.

Riveted_Reader_Melissa @jpmcwisemorgan After this incident, he was fined an outrageous sum, and eventually committed suicide....after that a bunch of academics began publicly posting their work in remembrance of him. (edited) 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @jpmcwisemorgan I‘d post the exact quote, but ironically it‘s on one of the redacted pages on the google books version 🤨 5y
jpmcwisemorgan Thank you! I really need to read this book, I keep meaning to. There are some schools fighting back against the high fees I think. That‘s terrible about the scientist being fined and committing suicide. If research is so important, it should be made available to everyone. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @jpmcwisemorgan You‘re welcome, being a group of essays about topics, there is some overlap, but overall I‘ve found them very interesting and all still very topical...things about Trayvon Martian or Michael Brown may be dated, but are completely still relevant, and the educational ones seem to fit right in with things that are being discussed now, like Warren‘s new student debt plan and there‘s even an essay about rich parents cheating to help ... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @jpmcwisemorgan ...their children get into good schools and what is causing that phenomenon and why it‘s a systemic problem, which couldn‘t be more on point right now. 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Well...that‘s insanely wrong!

MelissaSue81 This is a huge problem. But it‘s also what your academic library is for. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @MelissaSue81 Her point was, if you don‘t have access to an university‘s membership, you have to pay individually...and since the articles are behind a paywall you can‘t just read them and see if they are relevant to you without some money to burn. She has a great example of research she did regarding a group of refugees, that were framed by their home country as terrorists, her research proved it was false, but their lawyers had a hard time... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ...getting the information for their case, because it wasn‘t accessible to the public. 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa @MelissaSue81 I also think it‘s crazy she has to pay for her own articles...and gets no equivalent of a commission if they are downloaded and used often....but her larger point was they aren‘t available to people who didn‘t have disposable funds at the ready. 5y
MelissaSue81 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa - yep. Academic publishing is bonkers. Basically the students‘ tuition pays the faculty to publish and then pays again to buy the work for the academic community. But yes, privilege of access of information is a huge thing. I would *think* that most public libraries would be willing to ILL academic articles for a patron, but maybe not. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @MelissaSue81 she talking specifically about JSTOR, where apparently many universities publish their articles, but most of them are behind a paywall and must be paid to access. 5y
MelissaSue81 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa - yup And Elsevier is an even bigger offender than JSTOR. It absolutely is criminal. But as a librarian, I can assure we do everything we can so that our patrons don‘t have to pay for the info they need. So if my library doesn‘t have access to that database.. we can “borrow” it from another library or some libraries will just buy the article for the patron. But that costs $ too! 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @MelissaSue81 It‘s definitely an interesting read, and I‘m learning a lot. 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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“Those the public are taught to fear are often the ones in danger.”

Her essays on race are just as on point @Daisey

Daisey Thanks for sharing. I think I‘m going to have to move this one up the list. Its interested me since I first saw it mentioned, but I‘ve just never gotten around to it. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Daisey Are you on Twitter? I followed her on there before I had heard of the book and she always posts insightful tweets. 5y
Megabooks I loved loved loved this book! Read it twice! 5y
Daisey I have Twitter, but I rarely use it since joining Litsy. I might look her up though. Thanks. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Megabooks I could only get it through Scribd on audio, my library doesn‘t have it at all...but after listening, I‘m going to have to buy a book of my own and reread! 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Listening to this one today while I‘m in the waiting room.

I‘d definitely recommend these essays....especially to anyone discussing the offering of some Student Loan forgiveness and the voices who immediately pipe up with ”that‘s not fair” I paid mine.🙄

Daisey I haven‘t gotten to this yet, but it sounds intriguing. I‘ll be curious to see what you share and think overall. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Daisey I‘m listening to it on audio, so I won‘t post a lot of quotes, but it‘s a collection of essays that she wrote and now put together. The section I listened to yesterday was a lot about education, and not only the rise in costs, but the shift in scholarships going to the wealthy (because their attendance increases the school‘s prestige) over the poor. And a great one about how a lot of education in both politics and journalism require... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Daisey ...the ability to take and complete long unpaid internships, which is excluding many of the working poor from such professions....you both need the internships to make the contacts and get hired later, but to take them you have to be wealthy enough to live in NY unpaid for almost a year while you are interning. Which is impossible financially for most. 5y
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alisiakae I never understand the “that‘s not fair” arguments”. We‘ve paid off our student loans, but it took blood, sweat and tears to do so. I don‘t wish that on others. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @4thhouseontheleft Yes Exactly! But she makes a great argument in sections here about how work, good jobs, have become an unpaid/underpaid labor in many ways...contract workers, no benefits, and adjunct professors for example getting paid under the poverty line and qualifying for snap, etc...so even if you put all that increased cost out in education, the resulting jobs are paying less of a livable wage than in the past. That group of essays... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @4thhouseontheleft ...was very interesting. There‘s a whole discussion that even though profits are up, jobs are paying much less after the recession than before, and it‘s more squeezing of jobs that were considered “solid” jobs before. 5y
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TaraTLK
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review
Redwritinghood
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Pickpick

This is a pick, but with reservations. She has a clear eye for current issues and can articulate her arguments well. I felt, however, that a lot of her focus was coming from the place of intellectual elites, who are suffering under the current economy, but whose lives are still very different from the majority. I had thought this book would look more at the average worker. Nevertheless, there is a lot of value and relevance in this collection. 3⭐️

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cariashley
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Pickpick

A prescient but truly depressing read. I‘ve been following Kendzior on Twitter for a while and her takes are always good. This was a really worthwhile listen of her collected articles from ~5 years ago, which were true signals of what was to come.

Megabooks Agreed! Fantastic book 5y
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HeatherBlue
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‘A gaslit nation becomes engulfed in flames‘

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Megabooks
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Pickpick

The woman who, perhaps, predicted Trump‘s win before any other journalist, put together a collection of her essays from 2012-2014 that collectively help explain his win.

Her dispatches come from Missouri and detail the lives and movements in flyover Midwest and northern South, like where I live. She‘s spot-on. A must-read. 5⭐️

AmyG I follow her on twitter and she is a must read. 5y
Megabooks @AmyG Awesome! I must start following her 5y
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janeycanuck @Megabooks @AmyG I had to unfollow her - it was too much to see everything she predicted sadly coming true. 5y
AmyG @janeycanuck Yeah, she‘s been pretty spot on. :( 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa I‘m reading her on Twitter today, I have to get this book ASAP! 5y
Megabooks @Riveted_Reader_Melissa It‘s brilliant! I think you‘ll like it! 5y
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Megabooks
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On college, student loan debt, and the so-called meritocracy

BarbaraTheBibliophage Thanks so much for sharing these! 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage BTW, I caved in and bought the Kindle version. I‘ve been following Sarah on Twitter for a couple of years. Your posts were the finally Litfuence! 🤣 5y
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CampbellTaraL The quotes that kill. No complaints though, they're so spot on. Buried in debt, chained to the "decent wage" you must keep to stay afloat because there's no going back on that $100k of required education, but miserable because there's no joy in what you do. If you don't go, however, the misery could be worse. I want to read this book so bad but it might break me. 5y
Megabooks @BarbaraTheBibliophage You‘re welcome! I hope you enjoy it. I hadn‘t looked for her on Twitter. I‘ll follow her next time I log on. Thanks! 5y
Megabooks @taraWritesSci Yes! You‘re so right. And to really get ahead, you almost need a master‘s or other advanced degree. My mom was saying it was too bad that this mediocre high school student she knew was driving a ups truck instead of going to college after graduation last May. All I could think about was the debt he was avoiding! Especially if he already knew school wasn‘t his strong suit. 5y
CampbellTaraL @Megabooks Oof, definitely a smarter route than debt. 5y
802Librarian It‘s been 21 years since I graduated from high school and I‘m finally done paying for my college degrees. 5y
Megabooks @NHLibrarian congratulations! 🍾🎉That‘s a huge milestone. And it‘s ridiculous that we live in a country where a highly educated person has to make payments for that long! 5y
802Librarian @Megabooks Yup, it‘s equal parts awesome and irritating 😆 5y
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Megabooks
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When I started in veterinary medicine, I was already an adult with a bachelors degree. I had to shadow at a veterinary clinic for 6 months, then I got hired on for 25 hours a week at $8 an hour. That is not an uncommon starting pay for veterinary assistants, btw.

Then I went to veterinary school and got paid per year ⅔ of the amount of loans I owed at my first job. Again, pretty common.

I wish I could highlight and share this entire section.

brennahawleycraig The statement about journalism is 100% true too. I remember being so frustrated by my journalism major classmates who “made it” because they could afford to take the unpaid internships in NYC. 5y
Megabooks @brennahawleycraig Yes, I was a section editor at my college newspaper, and my friends who could take unpaid internships (especially in New York) are the ones I see in print and on TV today. It‘s been 15+ years since graduation, and some are still living in NYC and making just barely enough to stay. I‘m wondering what‘s going to happen when the highly paid boomers finally retire. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 5y
brennahawleycraig @Megabooks your friends will get the job and responsibility and a quarter of the pay of what the boomers got. That happened to me at the last paper I was at, with zero pay boost. That was the last straw before I left the industry. 5y
Megabooks @brennahawleycraig I don‘t blame you. That‘s simply insulting. 5y
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Megabooks
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My next two posts are for @BarbaraTheBibliophage who requested quotes from this book. I am so impressed by these columns. She really goes where few journalists have.

The section I just started reading is how the Muslim world is not all of one mind. This quote is from the previous section on jobs and the economy.

Barbara, if I owned this book I‘d mail it to you in a heartbeat.

BarbaraTheBibliophage You are making me want to buy and read this asap. 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I just found it on Scribd. Yay! 5y
Megabooks @BarbaraTheBibliophage Awesome! Hope you enjoy it 👍🏻 5y
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Megabooks
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I was browsing the library‘s Overdrive collection, and found this. It‘s essays written during the second Obama administration that are supposed show how the coast lost touch with the flyover and allowed Trump to win. I‘m intrigued. We‘ll see...

#nonfictionNovember #nonfiction2018

BarbaraTheBibliophage I have a few friends who think VERY highly of her. Hope you‘ll post more quotes! 5y
Megabooks @BarbaraTheBibliophage I‘m really enjoying it. As a person living in the flyover, I can say she really understands it. I can also see how she was able to predict Trump‘s victory. Very, very astute person. 5y
plemmdog This book sounds really good... now which I‘d read it in place of Heartland by Sarah Smarsh 5y
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Megabooks @plemmdog I have Heartland checked out from the library. I‘ve heard/read mixed reviews. What did you not like about it? 5y
plemmdog @Megabooks I guess I was spoiled by how good Westover‘s Educated was. Smarsh‘s memoir is much more nonlinear and a little harder to follow all the characters in her family. She also writes it as if addressing the child she chose not to have...which for me was a little clunky 5y
Megabooks @plemmdog That‘s the number one bad thing I‘ve heard - the voice of the book is incredibly awkward. I listened to the Educated audiobook this summer. I thought it was good, but I wasn‘t as impressed as most of my friends. Thanks for the explanation! 5y
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mrozzz
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Pickpick

Once I learned more about the author (writing from St. Louis), I so liked her attitude, outlook, & honest writing style. Her essays, originally published between 2013-14, all respond to current events- still making waves today. It's uncanny how issues of racism and income inequality especially remain prevalent, especially, now. The book was originally published as a whole 3 years ago and was republished again with an epilogue addressing Trump.

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Kempii
Pickpick

Excellent anthology of essays published by the author over the past decade. The title is unduly limiting. It's not only about flyover country. It's about class struggle in the United States and how the current system is set up to fail those who rely on it most. It had excellently argued social arguments about why charity is no substitute for social justice, the evils of exploitation, and the legitimacy of complaining.

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ReadingEnvy
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Pickpick

Book 4- Originally published in 2015 and republished in 2018 with a new forward and a new epilogue by the author, this collection of essays focuses on topics faced by the majority of Americans in the early 2010s - poverty and economic disparity, the rising cost of education, the diminishing value of that education, racism, who decides whose humanity matters, and more. A bit repetitive because most were previously published.

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KryssyB
Pickpick

‪Sarah Kendzior‘s updated version of “The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America” is released today. I highly suggest everyone read this great book of essays. ‬