With photography by Charter Weeks and text by Keith Flynn, this book documents the effect of “The Great Recession of 2008” on the lives of many working Americans and has been compared to Walker Evans and James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which chronicled the Great Depression of the 1930s. Flynn and Weeks interviewed and photographed over 100 people in homeless camps, dirt racetracks, gold stores, homes, churches and other environments within a 200-mile radius of Asheville, North Carolina. Despite the government’s claim that the recession was over in 2009 (perhaps true for bankers and automobile manufacturers), it was far from over for millions of ordinary American workers and continues unabated today because of the economic collapse from the pandemic. This is an important historical document raising the issues of social collapse, economic inequality and the disintegration of the financial security that was once the foundation of the American economy. Keith Flynn is the award-winning author of 6 books of poetry, most recently The Skin of Meaning, and 2 books of prose, including The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory. Flynn is also the Founder and Managing Editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, which was established in 1994. Charter Weeks has been a documentary photographer for over 50 years with projects in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US. Weeks’ work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the US and published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Photographers Forum, South Loop Review and Guernica Magazine, among others.
Keith Flynn is the award-winning author of eight books, including six collections of poetry: most recently Colony Collapse Disorder (Wings Press, 2013) and The Skin of Meaning (Red Hen Press, 2020), and two collections of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer’s Digest Books, 2007), and Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession (RedHawk Publications, 2021). From 1984-1999, he was lyricist and lead singer for the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996), and the spoken-word and music compilation, Nervous Splendor (2003). His latest album is Keith Flynn & The Holy Men, LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre (2011). He is the Executive Director and producer of the TV and radio show, “LIVE at White Rock Hall,” and Animal Sounds Productions, both which create collaborations between writers and musicians in video and audio formats. His award-winning poetry and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies around the world, including The American Literary Review, The Colorado Review, Poetry Wales, Five Points, Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Anthology, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, Writer’s Chronicle. The Cimarron Review, Rattle, Shenandoah, Word and Witness: 100 Years of NC Poetry, Crazyhorse, and many others. He has been awarded the Sandburg Prize for poetry, a 2013 NC Literary Fellowship, the ASCAP Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for NC. Flynn is founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, which began publishing in 1994.
