From a Broken Home to a Broken Institution
25th February 2024
When someone emerges from a challenging childhood to become a successful adult and writes a memoir about the experience, one of two narratives usually emerges: The first, and most lucrative in today’s market, is what might be called the “wallowing” narrative. Such books settle personal and familial scores; recount excessive drug use, promiscuity, and other poor life choices; and leave readers with a voyeurism hangover.
The second approach tells a tale of plucky courage and upward mobility, with the memoirist expressing gratitude for having been one of the “lucky ones,” who rose from chaos into order and is now eager to impart practical life lessons to others. This is the “inspirational bootstraps” narrative.
In Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, Rob Henderson does neither. Instead, he makes a crucial contribution not only to the modern art of memoir-writing, but to ongoing debates about class, merit, and success in the United States.
Whining and playing the victim is very profitable these days.