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Book Reviewed by:A wrenching debut about the causes and effects of poverty, as seen by a father and son living in a pickup.
Evicted from their trailer on New Year's Eve, Henry and his son, Junior, have been reduced to living out of a pickup truck. Six months later, things are even more desperate. Henry, barely a year out of prison for pushing opioids, is down to his last pocketful of dollars, and little remains between him and the street. But hope is on the horizon: Today is Junior's birthday, and Henry has a job interview tomorrow.
To celebrate, Henry treats Junior to dinner at McDonald's, followed by a night in a real bed at a discount motel. For a moment, as Junior watches TV and Henry practices for his interview in the bathtub, all seems well. But after Henry has a disastrous altercation in the parking lot and Junior succumbs to a fever, father and son are sent into the night, struggling to hold things together and make it through tomorrow.
In an ingenious structural approach, Jakob Guanzon organizes Abundance by the amount of cash in Henry's pocket. A new chapter starts with each debit and credit, and the novel expands and contracts, revealing the extent to which the quality of our attention is altered by the abundance―or lack thereof―that surrounds us. Set in an America of big-box stores and fast food, this incandescent debut novel trawls the fluorescent aisles of Walmart and the booths of Red Lobster to reveal the inequities and anxieties around work, debt, addiction, incarceration, and health care in America today.
Guanzon understands that the reader is not going to stay with this novel for long if they're constantly beaten over the head with hopelessness and darkness. He tempers the continual bleakness with Henry's poetic insight. For all these vividly alive descriptions and so many others, one can imagine hundreds more in notebooks or computer files that didn't make the cut, but may well find their way into future novels. Whatever Guanzon writes next will undoubtedly build upon the power he has established here...continued
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(Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky).
As he passes the lumber and rounds into a lane full of bagged cement, the logic behind the division of inventory dawns on him. The contractors' half of the store holds all the fundamental elements for building a home, all of which later get concealed by the ornaments for sale on the other side, all the paints, light fixtures, moldings, carpets.
—Henry, inside a Home Depot in Abundance
In 1978, Handy Dan Home Improvement's president and chairman of the board Bernie Marcus and CFO Arthur Blank were fired by the chain's new ownership. Not the kind to brood too long, they soon came up with a business plan to improve upon what Handy Dan offered to customers. 30,000 to 40,000 square feet for selling products? Child's play. How about a ...
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