Brother, Can You Spare a Few Books?: Background information when reading The Wangs vs. the World

Brother, Can You Spare a Few Books?

This article relates to The Wangs vs. the World

The Great Recession, in 2008, was the vicious charley horse that followed the extreme chest pains of the financial crisis in 2007. During that period, the $8 trillion housing bubble burst, and the stock market dropped precariously, taking down consumer spending, driving up the unemployment rate (from 5% in December 2007, to 9.5% in June 2009 and finally 10% in October 2009), dropping home prices 30 percent, and causing extraordinary strife in households across the nation. Family incomes plummeted, poverty rose, and people lost health insurance.

In the years since this happened, we've come to the point where we can look at the recession somewhat detached. Exactly what happened? Exactly how did it affect people throughout the United States? What did they do to survive? Books, as they often do, explore this tumultuous time.

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street was written in the thick of the Great Recession, seeking to understand what happened while it was still fresh. In it, author William D. Cohan looks at the collapse of investment bank giant Bear Stearns and how this began the dark slide into chaos for the country.

For a more personal look into how the Great Recession affected people, Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live by Barbara Garson is a great read. Garson talks to families, individuals, workers and employers about what they experienced, how they're trying to cope, and what they believe their future might be. Most affecting in this book are the elder Americans with their pensions gone.

Just like Jade Chang's The Wangs vs. the World, other novelists are also seeking to show the scope of the impact of the Great Recession. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue, was published two months prior to The Wangs vs. the World, and presents Cameroonian immigrant Jende Jonga, who has moved to Harlem for a better life for himself, his wife and their young son. Jonga is looking for a job, and finds one as a chauffeur to Clark Edwards, an executive at Lehman Brothers. This is in fall 2007, just before the crash. So just when they think they've found their good fortune, the world ends.

To remind us that it wasn't only the United States in crisis, but the world economy as well, another good read is Capital by John Lanchester, about the residents of 42 Pepys Road in London, one of them a banker expecting a major bonus.

As more years pass, there will undoubtedly be more books seeking to make more sense of the financial crisis and the Great Recession. It's more evidence that we're all in this together, no matter how far apart we might think we are in our own lives and our own beliefs. Books can bring us together and this is immensely useful.

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This "beyond the book article" relates to The Wangs vs. the World. It originally ran in November 2016 and has been updated for the June 2017 paperback edition. Go to magazine.