Review By Gabrielle

A thought-provoking read, Bone of the Bone is an excellent collection of essays by journalist Sarah Smarsh.

Favourite Quote:

“In a media landscape of zip-fast reports as stripped of context as a potato might be stripped of fibre, most news stories fail to satiate. We don’t consume news all day because we’re hungry for information; we consume it because we’re hungry for connection. That’s the confusing conundrum for the twenty-first-century heart and mind: to be at once overinformed and grasping for meaning.”

Goodreads Synopsis: 

Now collected for the first time in one volume, the brilliant and provocative essays that established National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh as one of the most important commentators on socioeconomic class in America—featuring a previously unpublished essay and a new introduction. In Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh brings her graceful storytelling and incisive critique to the challenges that define our times—class division, political fissures, gender inequality, environmental crisis, media bias, the rural-urban gulf. Smarsh, a journalist who grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college, has long focused on cultural dissonance that many in her industry neglected until recently. Now, this thought-provoking collection of more than thirty of her highly relevant, previously published essays from the past decade—ranging from personal narratives to news commentary—demonstrates a life and a career steeped in the issues that affect our collective future. Compiling Smarsh’s reportage and more poetic reflections, Bone of the Bone is a singular work covering one of the most tumultuous decades in civic life. Timely, filled with perspective-shifting observations, and a pleasure to read, Sarah Smarsh’s essays—on topics as varied as the socioeconomic significance of dentistry, laws criminalizing poverty, fallacies of the “red vs. blue” political framework, working as a Hooters Girl, and much more—are an important addition to any discussion on contemporary America.

Think of Bone of the Bone as a compendium of sorts. It brings together 36 of Sarah’s essays written between 2013-2024. All but one were previously published in various publications, from The New York Times to The Guardian to The Atlantic. In her introduction, she explains that much of her work is informed by her upbringing on a wheat farm in rural Kansas and the poverty that shaped her understanding of the social divide. 

I loved this book. Sarah writes with an intimacy that brings to life the everyday struggles and small joys of rural Americans, painting a nuanced portrait of life on the economic margins. She writes on a range of topics, from climate change to political policy. Many of her essays are more personal in nature, delving into the complex intergenerational trauma and resilience found in Sarah’s own working-class family.

Over the course of her career, Sarah has seen many changes in the field of journalism, from the “just the facts” type of reporting that was the standard to the more narrative style of today. Even as she questions the role of journalism and how it has changed over the years, Sarah doesn’t shy away from any of it. She writes in different styles in different essays.

One thing that struck me is how, although some of her earlier works are over ten years old, the themes remain relevant today. We haven’t come very far in the last decade. We are still struggling with many of the same issues, and her older essays are just as relevant now as they were then. In this way, her work is like a time capsule of recent history, pointing out our lack of progress.

Sarah’s work celebrates the strength and tenacity of those who persist in the face of adversity, and it makes for an excellent read.

Thank you, Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for the copy in exchange for an honest review.