random family

this book's important because it illuminates how all the seemingly crazy shit poor people do are grounded in rational reactions to crazy shitty circumstances. it says a lot about why people have babies. there's a huge amount about toxic, insane gender norms, about jail, about the unlikely, heartbreaking ways people pursue dignity, about cesar knowing to put on two pairs of underwear when he's carted off to jail so he can have one while he washes the other.

one striking, important thing is how even if you've done a heroic job of keeping your shit in order as a poor person, you've doubtless got a family and friends who don't. how you'll be the only thing keeping half a dozen people from being homeless, how rising in society means brutally casting off a lot of family and friends. which is a crazy weight. it reminded me of that fat history book about the balkans which described the refugees of conflicts would arrive elsewhere and proceed to foment unrest there because of their hard-won knowledge of evil, and their staid, ethnic counterparts'd get sucked in. analogous stuff.

just so many details. so much noble shit. i'd have a panic attack trying to turn 10 years into a book. am so glad she managed it. also, what a tour de force of facts. what a miracle of saying This happened and then that happened, of straightforwardness. it's like there's no interpretation, just searing thoroughness. that's a stylistic triumph, but also such an important thing for me to remember in trying to be a writer. how staggeringly better to just say what happened. don't foist meaning, just recite.