Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by the husband/wife team of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Nicholas is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, in addition he has been a finalist seven times while Sheryl is also a Pulitzer winner.
Nicholas in fact, grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon and his hometown is the cornerstone of this book. Subsequently he graduated from Harvard and holds a law degree from Oxford, while Sheryl graduated from Cornell and holds an MPA from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard.
In addition, Sheryl and Nicholas have co-authored China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia. Furthermore, Sheryl wrote her third best-seller Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide in 2009.
Nicholas did not qualify to run for Governor in Oregon in 2022 due to his residence in NYC. His family still owns their farm in Oregon. I certainly hope he runs for office in the future. This book obviously reveals they hold a solid understanding of the challenges and opportunities confronting our country.
Tightrope should be difficult book to fully digest. The impact around our local community and our country are certainly profound. Likewise, Tightrope documents a real world view of where we are heading, and it is not all too positive.
Life is not a box of chocolates
Chapter One begins with a simple message as Nicholas reflects upon the kids he rode the school bus while growing up. In fact, one quickly becomes aware of how families across our country have struggled, faltered, and died just like the kids on bus number six.
Furthermore, this book addresses a deep level of concerns for America today: homelessness, isolation, obesity, depression, unemployment, drugs, alcoholism, incarceration, diabetics and suicide. Tightrope on the other hand, demonstrates how government programs can be very helpful to address long standing inequities at the federal to local levels.
When the truth reveals long held beliefs to be false
Tightrope clarifies for even more readers today an old, false, (and cruel) misnomer. So, a long-held phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” seems to always come from those who hold the upper hand. So, the fortunate may never step into the shoes of the poor:
In fact, that expression originally signified the opposite of what it does today: in the early 1800s, it meant to do something impossible, for it is of course physically impossible to pull oneself up by one’s own boots. Not until the twentieth century did Americans begin to assign the phrase its current meaning.
pg. 267
In addition, Tightrope again teaches that the poor have health and addiction issues that confront them from even reaching for their bootstraps. Enter the Sacker family and opioids. And this recent tragedy has pushed even more Americans, against their best efforts into that ‘poor’ category that brings shame front and center as elegantly and honestly described by Brene Brown. Please consider reading her book The Gifts of Imperfection.
America ranks 61st in high school enrollment? Yes.
So, Tightrope reveals many flaws in our society impacting the longevity of life. This has especially impacted employment, education, various addictions and depression. Addiction alone should obviously not be overlooked. This is certainly an honest view of how America and Yamhill is faltering as an outcome of the 2008 financial crisis. The downstream effects in addition have been staggering:
America ranks number 40 in child mortality, according to the Social Progress Index, which is based on research by three Nobel Prize–winning economists and covers 146 countries for which there is reliable data. We rank number 32 in internet access, number 39 in access to clean drinking water, number 50 in personal safety and number 61 in high-school enrollment. Somehow, “We’re number 61!” doesn’t seem so proud a boast. Overall, the Social Progress Index ranks the United States number 25 in well-being of citizens, behind all the other members of the G7 as well as significantly poorer countries like Portugal and Slovenia, and America
pg. 40
All The Kids on the Number 6 School Bus Are Dead?
This is certainly a difficult book to digest. Nicholas’ hometown literally serves as Ground Zero. From the 2010 census, Yamhill is city of 1,024 people, 353 households, and 285 families residing within the city in addition, the racial makeup of the city was 91.2% White. The lives of Kristof family friends are honestly documented. And for accuracy, over 1/3 of the kids who road the bus with Nicholas are indeed dead.
OxyContin | Opioid | Fentanyl — call this crisis what you will
Should this be shocking to indeed realize the kids who grew up around the Kristof family and farm are indeed dead of drugs or diabetics? Tightrope is certainly accurate addressing the opioids crisis created by the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma:
McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm, advised Purdue on how to “turbocharge” sales of opioids, how to resist drug enforcement agents and how “to counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed.” Insys Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company, allegedly paid $175,000 to an Ohio doctor, Gregory Gerber, in kickbacks to promote a prescription version of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Insys achieved 1,000 percent growth in earnings from fentanyl from 2012 to 2013 by paying doctors to join a speakers program and promote the drug, and by paying sales representatives bonuses for aggressive marketing of it. Insys was effectively manipulating doctors to get patients addicted.
pgs. 214-215.
Where do we go from here?
The stories of how America’s addition ran uncontrollably is damning indeed. In addition, every neighborhood across our country has veterans impacted of opioids has been devastating. One other thing, Tightrope’s powerful message matches Brian Alexander’s excellent book The Hospital. It is indeed hurtfully to learn too many of the children who lived around the Kristof family struggled and died so young, many from addiction before the age of 35.
In conclusion, Nicholas and Sheryl deliver a brutally honest assessment of America. At points, long time family relationships ended due to the stories from this small town in rural Oregon. Above all, do not shy away from reading this book.