RR Nickel and Dimed
Barbara's Ehrenreich's introduction to her book wastes no time getting into her journalistically-styled, openly-introspective and well-researched essay. Her writing style is concise in conveying information while generous in sharing image and experience. It's like I can hear her explaining the book to me, patiently recounting her experiences. Save a couple trips to the dictionary, I was bound in suspense of what might happen, and what details I might be privy to. Her effective use of organization and narrative made this suspense possible. There was also evidence abound of her diligent note taking; It was clear that the details including in the book were chosen from among many, and described meaningfully. There's no way to corroborate the accuracy of personal accounts, but one is tempted to go on a leap of faith for the author given the quality of the work. Her footnotes are used strategically and in my opinion quite effectively to accentuate observations made in narratives using the best available hard data.
In general, I was intrigued by the premise of the book, and curious to what the nature of her observations would be. After the introduction, I wanted to read on not just because of her confessed naïveté but also because of her preformed beliefs of micro-economies or other developed-and-traded coping methods that one in the mindstate of "middle-class solipsism" can easily assume onto the poor. I could imagine many possible outcomes or new beliefs for the author, and the introduction wisely introduced some haziness as to what might happen.
The writer's major accomplishment in this piece that stood out to me is managing to fuse elements of sociological writing, journalistic writing, and personal narrative into a single story that actually engages the reader's empathy and curiosity toward the "characters" involved. For example, I was disappointed at the end to find out there was no more to George's story. I really wanted to know more.
I want to read the book now.