Nicole Chung's A Living Remedy is the latest "American poverty" memoir to be embraced by corporate media. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed was hardly the first, but it seems central to the theme among contemporary titles. A modified excerpt of Nicole Chung's book appears at The Atlantic, and in Esquire she recognizes that she most likely could have helped her parents a lot more if she hadn't chosen a writing career. It seems worth noting that among millions of Americans, helping parents is rarely considered; rather, it's a value left behind in the Old Worlds of multiple continents.
