Abundance

Next up was Abundance by Jakob Guanzon.  This humble scribe had suggested this book for two reasons – first it might strike the same father-boy (son?) chord as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  In this case rather than father and son moving through dystopia, this father and son would be moving through landscape of poverty in America.  I welled up during The Road (so did you!), looked at my boys and thought even though one of you doesn’t have good grades, I would do anything for them.  If there was any chance that this book could tap into that bond between father and son, then it was absolutely worth a shot.  The second was to potentially ignite something within oneself to identify people in a poverty-stricken situation and to lend a hand or some cash to ease what must be the unbearable stress of modern poverty.  Unfortunately, the book was only 1 for 2.  More to follow on the one.

Right out of the box there were some criticisms that this was not literature but rather an opportunity for social commentary.  A fictional Ford F150 Hillbilly Elegy.  There was some criticism around there being only one character of note, Henry.  Michelle was universally disliked, and Papa’s imprint on Henry was heftier than Papa himself.  Flamboyant Al was solid in his scenes, but Junior, who could have really impacted this book, was reduced to a kid complaining about a stomachache.  Papa did add element of race to the book, but interestingly it was subtle and well done rather than today’s ubiquitous in your face approach.  In a real twist, Henry’s father was cancelled by today’s typical college jack ass, but he doesn’t complain, nor does Henry.  Although that and the racial angle does linger ever so slightly in Henry’s persona where you get the vibe that he doesn’t feel he’s worthy of anything good.  This despite being the son of two college professors.  The insecurity may also come from the fact that he never gets a break.  Whatever the circumstance, he gets the bad luck bonus plan.  Taking an Advil from Walmart becomes a slam your head on the hood event.  Henry’s atrocious luck was relentless.

The book did take us down some unusual paths.  We have lawyers in the group who looked up and discussed the applicability of inherited debt and in what jurisdictions that was a real issue.  We also did not realize that ex-cons are not eligible for welfare or food stamps, which sounds insane because no doubt they are broke once they come out of the slammer.  The most surprising topic was when the question was raised have you ever been poor?  You would have expected crickets from these Masters of the Universe, but that wasn’t the case…and we will leave it at that.

Did Abundance ignite a sense of generosity?  On behalf of this humble scribe, I submit yes.  I was selling one of my sons’ tricked out bicycles when I received the call from a guy in Bridgeport.  He worked at a car wash in The Hollow (a.k.a., the ghetto) and his truck had been stolen, so he wanted to bike to get to work.  I loaded the bike up and drove it to him because he had no wheels and was going to give it to him for free, but the car wash turned out to be closed and the dude was sending me text breadcrumbs taking me deeper and deeper into the hood.  It felt squirrely to begin with, and now my 1970s Brooklyn street smarts said tap out.  I did, but the thought counts since I’m doing the counting. 

Now a word about our author.  Jakob Guanzon is an awesome dude.  15-minutes before our meeting, which we Zoomed for convenience not COVID, we found the author’s web page.  We shot him an invite, which of course we considered a no-hoper.  However, about 10 minutes after the meeting was over, Jakob Guanzon was in the meeting waiting room.  Let’s just say we all have a new favorite author.  Obviously going forward buy all his books (https://www.jakobguanzon.com/publications) so he can continue to put bread or caviar on the table, and once you’re done reading those, consider that lately he’s a big fan of Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish.  No doubt we will be reading that one.  Thank you Jakob from your newest fanboys.