大象传媒

Monica Potts new book is a powerful account of friendship, ambition and lost promise in 21st century rural America. Today, she goes back to Clinton, the small town in the Ozarks where she grew up. Recollecting her childhood prompts questions about cycles of hardship in the poorest of American communities, and her own past. Kelly Burke reads.

Monica Potts is an acclaimed journalist and here she sets out to understand generational cycles of poverty and hardship that continue to blight the lives of rural communities in contemporary America. At the same time, she reconnects with her childhood friend, Darci, and the big economic and social questions she's asking become personal. Darci, her talented and brilliant friend was now homeless, jobless and an addict. Her fate could have been Monica's, and so begins a journey to find out why the two women's lives took such different paths.

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard