Abundance opens with Henry taking his son Junior to McDonald’s for his 8th birthday. He has carefully budgeted for the trip as well as an overnight stay at a rundown motel, which will eat up nearly all the cash they have, but Henry wants to make this birthday special and also use the night as a respite to prepare for a longed for job interview he has scheduled the next day. Henry and his son have been living out of their truck for the last few months, homeless, jobless, and making do on whatever cash Henry can scrape together as a day laborer.
The story flips back and forth between Junior’s birthday and the following day of Henry’s job interview to the previous years which have brought them to this point.
Their story is gripping, sad, frustrating, desperate; your heart breaks just a little more at each turn of events. Guanzon’s writing is seamless, you can almost sense an echo of the jingling of the last coins in Henry’s pocket as he contemplates how he’ll pay for food for Junior’s stomach or gas for their truck to get him where he must go. Reading this story is a visceral experience.
Abundance intimately explores poverty, destitution, and a system rigged against success for some. Henry has a felony conviction on his record which prohibits he and his child from receiving government assistance and allows for discrimination in housing, voting, and employment. Each chapter is titled by the amount of money Henry has because in America the life you lead, the options available to you, your worth, your rights, your dignity, are inextricably tied to your bank account.
Because in the land of plenty freedom isn’t free.
The roughly 25% of Americans who live below, at, or just above the poverty line understand this principle intimately.
Abundance is one of my favorite books from the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist. Once I started reading I couldn’t put it down. This impressive debut was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award.
That Bookish Life 