Subtitled “A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class,” TROUBLED by Rob Henderson describes his experiences in foster
care, the military, Yale and Cambridge. In some ways, this text is reminiscent
of 2016’s Hillbilly Elegy as both chronicle childhood instability (life with
drug addicts and abandonment by parents) followed by military stints and time
at Yale (in fact, Vance “blurbed” this new book). Henderson is quietly
reflective and focuses a great deal on what he labels as “luxury beliefs.” He
writes at length about differences in experiences and perspectives, noting, for
example, “in one of my classes at Yale, I learned that eighteen out of the twenty
students were raised by both of their birth parents. That stunned me, because
none of the kids I knew growing up was raised by both of their parents.” Later,
he comments, “I grew to understand that there were aspects of social class that
can't be quantified or put on a resume” and “part of integrating into this
community meant having a cursory knowledge of the latest op-eds and fashionable
news items.” Henderson himself has written an essay with excerpts (“Only the
affluent can afford to learn strange vocabulary. Ordinary people have real
problems to worry about”) from TROUBLED for The Wall Street Journal. Given Henderson’s frustration, anger, and
bitterness at “elites” and hypocrisy, it would be interesting to compare and
contrast his conclusions with the analysis and commentary on White Rural Rage recently published in The New York Times.
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