This is Beth Macy’s most personal book, and anyone who expects merely a nostalgic memoir of a Midwestern childhood based on the title and cover does not know Beth Macy. To write this book, she went back to her Ohio hometown to see how it had changed since she grew up relatively poor there and became the recipient of a Pell Grant that fully paid for her to go away to college, helping her into a stable adult life. She finds a student to follow who seems similar to a modern version of her, but most of the book is an exploration of the town as it is now and her own family members still in the area, and she finds that many are caught in a web of anger, suspicion, and conspiracy theories, leading to a stark demonstration of the polarization in the country today. Her reflections on the reasons for this are sobering, and she finds no easy answers. This is a brave book in the way it confronts a situation that has led her to awkwardness and estrangement with numerous members of her own family; it could not have been easy to write, but like all books by Beth Macy, it is valuable to read.

5 stars

This book wasn't exactly what I was expecting and, for my own sanity I need to take a break from reading books involving politics as they stand today in America, but, wow, did I love this and I think I want to go to Roanoke and stalk Beth Macy until she realizes that we are fated to be best friends.

For some reason I thought this was a memoir, but it’s really an incredibly compelling look at the differences in small town America (here, Ohio) between Macy’s youth and today, and a wider view at how divided we are as a nation. However, this time it’s not written by Ivy League professors or pundits, but is written by a woman who is re-engaging with some of the people she knows best, her friends and neighbors from her hometown. For example, Macy’s ex-boyfriend, who was born once a liberal hippie and is now a Q-Anonymous spouting conspiracy theorist. Town leaders who refuse to support a youth center. Educators who are trying, desperately to stop the town’s plummeting graduation and truancy rates, but receiving little support from many parents.

This was fascinating, and Macy writes like you are having a conversation with a good friend. I’ve been halfway meaning to read, but keep putting off her DOPESICK, because sometimes I feel that, living where I do, I’ve been overwhelmed with information on the opioid crisis, but I’ll definitely be getting to it soon. I absolutely loved this, and highly recommend it.

Paper Girl

Beth Macy grew up delivering the newspaper in her hometown, and, as an adult, became a journalist who wrote the news. Despite having many challenges as a young person, she benefited from living in a stable, vital community, with people of a variety of different income levels living in proximity to each other.

Years later, she went back to her hometown of Urbana, Ohio to find that it had deteriorated in certain ways. Her analysis of the situation is discouraging but she does find reason for hope.
All in all she gives an eye opening view of the current state of small cities in the U.S. This book is well worth reading.