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A review by crum_93
Quiet Street: On American Privilege by Nick McDonell
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.75
Thank you for the ARC I received from Knopf Books through a giveaway on goodreads.
While I don’t know what I expected, I’m not sure this is it. I appreciated the approach to telling the stories of the author and his friends/classmates growing up, but in many ways it felt really sympathetic. Yes, it was pretty direct in calling out the nepotism and cyclical power dynamic of the 1%, but we also got a lot of explanation and shoulder shrugging. What if YOU as an insider, author, were to be more confrontational? Yes, you needed to play nicely to have the conversation but I feel like a more direct and possibly abrasive hand might actually get a point across to your 1% colleagues. As a non-member of this group, this simply made me more angry at them as a whole, which I previously did not think was possible.
All that to say, this author is a good writer. I like his voice and how equitably it seemed he tried to approach this topic. My distance from and predisposition to anger at this community is not the author’s fault, but given the proximity he has to them and privilege he has, I would like to see a more “calling out” than “inviting in” analysis of the situation.
While I don’t know what I expected, I’m not sure this is it. I appreciated the approach to telling the stories of the author and his friends/classmates growing up, but in many ways it felt really sympathetic. Yes, it was pretty direct in calling out the nepotism and cyclical power dynamic of the 1%, but we also got a lot of explanation and shoulder shrugging. What if YOU as an insider, author, were to be more confrontational? Yes, you needed to play nicely to have the conversation but I feel like a more direct and possibly abrasive hand might actually get a point across to your 1% colleagues. As a non-member of this group, this simply made me more angry at them as a whole, which I previously did not think was possible.
All that to say, this author is a good writer. I like his voice and how equitably it seemed he tried to approach this topic. My distance from and predisposition to anger at this community is not the author’s fault, but given the proximity he has to them and privilege he has, I would like to see a more “calling out” than “inviting in” analysis of the situation.