Abundance was my most recent book club pick and I really enjoyed it - but first let's talk about the real reason I picked it.
I chose Abundance hoping that it would have some similarities to Maid by Stephanie Land, which it did. If you haven't read Maid it is fabulous. I read it back in 2019 but still vividly remember some parts of the story. Maid is a memoir about Land's time struggling to make enough money for her and her daughter to survive. The story demonstrates the endless cycle that is poverty in the United States (and Canada) in that you feel trapped and can't get out. Even though there are social supports in place, Maid demonstrates how inaccessible some of these supports are and how difficult it is to make enough money at minimum wage to ever find your way out of the poverty cycle.
You may have heard or seen the Netflix limited series Maid which is loosely based on the book. I watched the series as well and loved it for completely different reasons than why I loved the book. The miniseries shows a young woman who has survived domestic violence and a traumatic childhood and is doing her best to give her daughter the life she deserves. I feel that some of the things the miniseries did really well are: showcasing how difficult it is for domestic violence survivors to get support and get out, placing a critical eye on the social services available for those suffering from poverty and how limited those services really are, as well as pointing out how little money someone who works for minimum wage really has (a point I will come back to when discussing Abundance). The miniseries focuses more on the fractured and negative relationships in the main character Alex's life and less on her job as a maid.
One of the things I loved about the book was that it did focus mainly on life as a maid. I learned so much about this awful, low paying job. Don't get me wrong, I don't live such a sheltered life as to assume that maids have a nice, easy, high paying job, but the book truly was eye-opening in how much money and physical labour goes into doing a job that pays almost nothing. I also learned how to best clean my stove top and think of the book often when cleaning my own home. While the book does explore the same themes of the cycle of poverty and the limited social services available as well as the resiliency needed to survive and hopefully overcome poverty, it does not go quite as in-depth to these themes as the miniseries. I think this is because the book is a memoir and as a result, is a reflection of Land's real experiences, whereas the miniseries is fictional and storylines could be added or removed as needed. Either way - you should read and watch both. They are both amazing and I don't think you'll get mad that they are totally different (as many tv/movies based on books can be annoyingly similar but "not as good"), because the differences are what makes each version great.
Now, back to Abundance by Jakob Guanzon. Abundance tells the story of a fictional man named Henry who has struggled his entire life with addiction and poverty. After being released from jail he struggles to find a way to support his young son Junior while they are living in his truck and he is desperately trying to find work. The story also time hops to his childhood, young adult life, and to when Junior was very young. One of my book club members described the book as being a constant punch to the gut. Anytime that Henry gets the tiniest little break, something comes in to ruin it all. This, is essentially the cycle of poverty.
The first thing that appealed to me about this book was that each chapter was titled with a dollar amount which pointed out exactly how much money the main character Henry had at that point in time. This is a lot like the miniseries Maid, where the amount of money in Alex's bank account is visually represented on the screen any time she gains or loses money. This is a really nice visual in both the miniseries and Abundance because it shows that poverty actually requires you to have a lot of money. For example, in Abundance, Henry pays money for a hotel room so that he can have a proper shower and a nice clean suit before his job interview. In order to hopefully get a job, he needs to pay money that someone who is not homeless would not have to do. Similarly, for Alex (and Stephanie in the book) to get a job as a maid, she needs to first pay money for uniforms and cleaning supplies.
Something that my book club did not really like about this book was the time hopping. Because the chapters are titled with numbers it is very hard to follow when and where we are at the beginning of each chapter. For example, present day might be $50.23 and the past might be $300 while a different time in the past might be $10,000. As I said, I went into this book hoping that the dollar amounts would be similar to the dollar amounts in the miniseries Maid, which in a way they were, but because of all of the time hopping, it wasn't as obvious as I was hoping it would be. Had it been in chronological order and you could see how one minute he had $50.23 and then later that day he had $20.23 because he spent $30 on gas it would be more impactful (in my opinion) than jumping from $50.23 to $10,000 suddenly and completely out of context. That being said, I think that Guanzon still got that message across to his readers, just maybe not as clearly as I would have wanted it to be if I were the author.
Additionally, my book club didn't like the ending. I won't spoil things by explaining why but if you choose to read the book, be prepared for not a lot of closure. It is definitely not an inspiring and hopeful ending either. When you're poor life basically sucks, and that is the real underlying message of each of these books and tv shows. It is extremely hard, and expensive, to be poor, but you really have limited control over whether or not it will happen to you since it is life circumstances that put you there.
Being at risk for poverty has a huge impact on whether or not you will experience poverty and until we can help prevent those risks by supporting people in poverty and their children, we will always have this cycle of poverty. Which is why I hope that everyone reads these two books. If you're lazy, watch the netflix show, but take the time to reflect on it in between episodes, don't binge. We can't expect the poor to solve poverty if we force them into that cycle. It takes everyone, no matter what your social and financial situation may be to right the wrongs of society today. So read, learn something and go make some change!