Saturday Review: “The Forgotten South, Remembered” a review by Dale Neal of Keith Flynn and Charter Weeks’ Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession (2021)
We are so excited to start sharing book reviews forthcoming in our fall issue (due out in October)!
Neal writes, “In their eye-opening book Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession, poet Keith Flynn and photographer Charter Weeks take to the back roads and secondary highways of the Southern Appalachians around Asheville, NC, to document the voices and faces of those left behind after the financial collapse of 2008.” The trip takes them across several states to find people making their homes, such as they may be, in many different places.
Not surprising for the poet and the photographer, they find the beauty in the hardship. “What comes through in these fifty-seven vignettes and black and white portraits are the dignity, good humor, and persistence of people in hard times,” Neal writes. “Flynn identifies “It could always be worse” as the catchphrase of the Great Recession among the people he meets. “We’re fine now, the phrase says, we
have mobility, choices, and it ain’t gonna get worse than this. That’s what they say. And then it does. Get worse, that is” (58).”
“Flynn and Weeks make their art matter by making sure that the stories and faces of these Americans are not lost to our attention.” Even though a bit of departure from their previous work, they are doing good for their community with this book.
Read the review before it is published this fall and buy the book from Redhawk of from your local independent bookstore.
