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natalieba's review
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Drug abuse
Moderate: Violence
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Another Aspen Words 2022 longlist read down (my 14th, I believe). And this is one I have seen nowhere and heard basically nothing about until it showed up on this list. So, I went into it basically blind and with no bookstagram reviews to rely on for vibes about it. Which is a position I very rarely find myself in these days.
Henry and his son, Junior, are living in Henry's pick-up truck after being evicted from their trailer. Barely making it day-to-day, Henry has high hopes for this particular day, as it's Junior's birthday and he has just enough to treat him to a small gift, a meal at McDonald's and a night in a real motel room. Plus, Henry has an interview tomorrow, and is feeling good with the promise of reliable income on the horizon. But despite all his best efforts and hopes, Henry's plans are thrown off course by an opportunistic front-desk clerk, an altercation in the morel parking lot, and Junior developing a fever, throwing the pair back into imminent despair and the brink of disaster.
Well, this shouldn't come as a surprise, since this award recognizes books that address urgent social issues, but this was a very heavy read. From start to finish, there is such a weight in Henry's voice, story, and life. Stylistically, it was presented in an incredibly unique way, with each chapter titled as the sum-total amount of cash that Henry currently has to his name. It's a very unique literary way of measuring a person's time, life, the space they take up, through the reality of their credits and debits, the large and the small, and the constant flux they're in. And it's a visceral commentary on (and condemnation of) the way a person's economic value is the most salient and important thing about them, in our current capitalistic world. Even as we get to know Henry on a much more intimate level, his past and hopes and dreams and failures and efforts and relationships, his external worth is still measured solely in a dollar amount. The story itself unfolds in two timelines, the first detailing Henry's adolescent years and how he got to the point where he and Junior are living moment-to-moment out of his truck, the second spanning the less than 24-hour period between Junior's birthday dinner and getting picked up from school the next day.
It's all an incredibly tense reading experience, as in both timelines there is a lot of hopelessness, a tunnel of it, the inevitableness of "failure" that comes with poverty. It’s an intense downward spiral towards rock bottom that hurts to watch unfold. And Guanzon leans into that with his writing style, sort of short and choppy, a kind of kaleidoscope fever dream of everyday poor, rural(ish) life. The language of description for the smallest details, the things we’d normally overlook, were so precise, really making the quotidian literary. At one point Guanzon uses the phrase “gloom in technicolor,” and I felt like that was truly a spot on descriptor for the entire novel. My one caveat is that that vibe sometimes hit quite right and sometimes felt like it was trying a bit too hard.
This is one of the few fictional accounts of post-incarceration life that I have ever read (other than An American Marriage, I think...another Aspen Words book, the 2019 winner, actually) and, in addition to the financial/economic social commentary of this novel, jumped out at me as the reason it made this longlist. The way Guanzon highlights the complete lack of options, opportunities and resources for reintegration post-incarceration, the way the system makes it almost impossible to "get back on one's feet" and find a bit of stability (and then blames it on the individual's character when they are unsuccessful), is really affecting. It's in the little details, the small steps that seem insurmountable under the circumstances. The job interview prep sessions, the phone card/deodorant purchases, and the poignant moments like the constant call of the memory of Henry’s mother with visual reminders/appearances of her shawl, were particularly gutting. Also, the youthful naivete and hope in Henry as he considers the future possibilities after the interview is almost tangible and that just...hurts...to read. This focus on the difficulty of coming back to "real life" after incarceration is paralleled with a look at addiction and recovery as well.
Overall, the way this book explores the gulf of difference in financial security in this country (and how out of one's control the circumstances of birth and opportunity are that determine which side of the gulf you're on), as well as the exploration of the reality of the razor's edge between disaster and opportunity, with moments of breakthrough hope, are heartbreaking. There is a study of primal themes like sex, hunger, addiction and the urge for stability, with a focus on the confluence of circumstance and loss of self-control related to them. Honestly, there was so much about this book that was great, and I wanted to like it more than I did, so I can only put down my "liked, but not loved" vibe about it to a mismatch of reader and book (or a mistimed reading experience), which is too bad.
“If fatherhood has taught him anything at all, it is helplessness.”
“Their everything is so little and they’ve gathered it all…”
“His life sentence to the status of an untouchable seems both cruel and unusual.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Pregnancy and Violence
Minor: Physical abuse, Self harm, Confinement, Eating disorder, and Domestic abuse
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Imagine a life where all the money you had in your pocket was a handful of loose change and that was all the money you had period. Imagine that today is your son’s eighth birthday and that you want to make it special for him. And imagine trying to do this while homeless with your sole income coming from casual poorly paid day labouring jobs. That’s the reality faced by Henry, one we get to share in Abundance, my final read from the Aspen Words Literary Prize longlist.
Rather than being headed with numbers Abundance’s chapters are headed with the amount of money Henry has at the time. It’s an effective way of highlighting his desperate financial reality, something the book starkly portrays. Ketchup sachets are forever changed in my eyes.
The book has two main timelines. The first unfolds in little more than 24 hours - Junior’s birthday and some of the subsequent day. Interspersed are chapter’s showing how Henry came to be at this point in his life. I have mixed feelings about this. I was much more invested in the present day storyline and found myself irritated when we jumped back in time. In addition the past storyline highlights some poor choices made by Henry including drug dealing and domestic violence. Which forced me to think. And isn’t that what a good book should do? Why should Henry be a perfect character to warrant sympathy, empathy, compassion? Shouldn’t everyone regardless of their background and choices, be entitled to a life of dignity with ready access to at least basic food and shelter?
In the present storyline I was simultaneously rooting for Henry (if only he could catch one simple break) and wanting to rail against some of his choices. Again this forced me to ponder. Why might someone in Henry’s position not seek emergency housing, food stamps and the like? What barriers discourage people from accessing these services? How do you make good choices if you don’t have good options?
Abundance is a well-told story about a flawed man trying to do his best within a broken system. It highlights the brutal yet everyday realities of poverty, the impossible choices it forces people to make, the resulting, pressure,desperation, degradation.
Rather than being headed with numbers Abundance’s chapters are headed with the amount of money Henry has at the time. It’s an effective way of highlighting his desperate financial reality, something the book starkly portrays. Ketchup sachets are forever changed in my eyes.
The book has two main timelines. The first unfolds in little more than 24 hours - Junior’s birthday and some of the subsequent day. Interspersed are chapter’s showing how Henry came to be at this point in his life. I have mixed feelings about this. I was much more invested in the present day storyline and found myself irritated when we jumped back in time. In addition the past storyline highlights some poor choices made by Henry including drug dealing and domestic violence. Which forced me to think. And isn’t that what a good book should do? Why should Henry be a perfect character to warrant sympathy, empathy, compassion? Shouldn’t everyone regardless of their background and choices, be entitled to a life of dignity with ready access to at least basic food and shelter?
In the present storyline I was simultaneously rooting for Henry (if only he could catch one simple break) and wanting to rail against some of his choices. Again this forced me to ponder. Why might someone in Henry’s position not seek emergency housing, food stamps and the like? What barriers discourage people from accessing these services? How do you make good choices if you don’t have good options?
Abundance is a well-told story about a flawed man trying to do his best within a broken system. It highlights the brutal yet everyday realities of poverty, the impossible choices it forces people to make, the resulting, pressure,desperation, degradation.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Violence
deedireads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
Abundance is a book that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to — humbling and frustrating, it’s an empathetic look inside the trap of poverty in America today. I think you should read it.
For you if: You are willing to be uncomfortable in order to have your eyes opened a little wider.
FULL REVIEW:
I read Abundance after it was longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. I probably wouldn’t have heard of it or picked it up otherwise, but I’m glad I did. I’m also glad it’s being recognized, particularly by the NBA, because Jakob Guanzon has written a humbling, frustrating, deeply modern American novel.
The book is about a man named Henry, a formerly incarcerated single dad who is currently living out of his pickup truck with his young son. It starts on his son’s birthday, which he celebrates with a carefully budgeted trip to McDonald’s and a stay in a motel with a real bed and bathtub. Things are looking up because Henry has a job interview the next day. But then his son springs a fever and starts to worsen, and Henry has to desperately grasp for control, optimism — and enough money to eat, get to his interview, and help his son. Throughout the book, we also jump backward in time to learn about Henry’s adolescence, start to his family, struggle with drugs, incarceration, and eventual homelessness.
Henry is a wildly imperfect protagonist (which is its own important narrative choice), but you can’t help but root for him. Even though he’s often made bad choices, he’s deeply human and trying so hard to do right by his son, build something, and just get through the day. And so this novel does exactly what it sets out to do — reading it is a frustrating, humbling experience. You have the sense that if Henry could only catch one single break, he’d be able to get a handle on things and be okay. And you remember this is the lived reality for so many people stuck in the cycle of poverty in the US, and you remember that so many of them never do catch a break, and they live in this state of constant stress every day; it doesn’t get to end after 250 pages that cover two days.
And then there’s the brilliant structural choice to organize the books into chapters named for the amount of money Henry has in his pocket at any given moment, underscoring that number’s tenuous, constant presence at the front of his mind — how critical it is to his existence, how he is never allowed to forget it.
If you have a roof over your head and food in your refrigerator and the ability to buy your children Advil when they are sick, this book will force you to remember and sit with that privilege.
I will be thinking about the end of this one for a really, really long time.
TL;DR REVIEW:
Abundance is a book that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to — humbling and frustrating, it’s an empathetic look inside the trap of poverty in America today. I think you should read it.
For you if: You are willing to be uncomfortable in order to have your eyes opened a little wider.
FULL REVIEW:
I read Abundance after it was longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. I probably wouldn’t have heard of it or picked it up otherwise, but I’m glad I did. I’m also glad it’s being recognized, particularly by the NBA, because Jakob Guanzon has written a humbling, frustrating, deeply modern American novel.
The book is about a man named Henry, a formerly incarcerated single dad who is currently living out of his pickup truck with his young son. It starts on his son’s birthday, which he celebrates with a carefully budgeted trip to McDonald’s and a stay in a motel with a real bed and bathtub. Things are looking up because Henry has a job interview the next day. But then his son springs a fever and starts to worsen, and Henry has to desperately grasp for control, optimism — and enough money to eat, get to his interview, and help his son. Throughout the book, we also jump backward in time to learn about Henry’s adolescence, start to his family, struggle with drugs, incarceration, and eventual homelessness.
Henry is a wildly imperfect protagonist (which is its own important narrative choice), but you can’t help but root for him. Even though he’s often made bad choices, he’s deeply human and trying so hard to do right by his son, build something, and just get through the day. And so this novel does exactly what it sets out to do — reading it is a frustrating, humbling experience. You have the sense that if Henry could only catch one single break, he’d be able to get a handle on things and be okay. And you remember this is the lived reality for so many people stuck in the cycle of poverty in the US, and you remember that so many of them never do catch a break, and they live in this state of constant stress every day; it doesn’t get to end after 250 pages that cover two days.
And then there’s the brilliant structural choice to organize the books into chapters named for the amount of money Henry has in his pocket at any given moment, underscoring that number’s tenuous, constant presence at the front of his mind — how critical it is to his existence, how he is never allowed to forget it.
If you have a roof over your head and food in your refrigerator and the ability to buy your children Advil when they are sick, this book will force you to remember and sit with that privilege.
I will be thinking about the end of this one for a really, really long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Addiction, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Violence
amressing's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Abundance is heart-wrenching and evoked so many feelings for me. This story follows Henry and moves back and forth between the present and past focusing on the role that money has played in his life. Henry moves through the highs and lows of being financially stable to living out of his truck with his son, Junior. This book explores the effect poverty has on a person and what it might drive you to do, specifically through the lens of masculinity.
Guanzon's character development is phenomenal and I felt myself being both pulled in and repulsed by Henry throughout the book.
Guanzon's character development is phenomenal and I felt myself being both pulled in and repulsed by Henry throughout the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Addiction
Moderate: Sexual violence, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
Minor: Vomit and Blood
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