This week's guest contributor is Stacy Graber. She comes from great academic roots having worked on her Ph.D at Arizona State University and she is currently an assistant professor in the English Department at Youngstown State University, which has been one of the hotbeds for the study of Young Adult Literature for many years and the location of the longtime YSU English Festival. I am thrilled to report that I will be attending the Festival this year as one of the keynote speakers along with Matt de la Peña. I am very excited to be working with Stacy again. She helps us end the year with a thoughtful posting.
There are so many great renovation shows (e.g., Property Brothers, Rehab Addict, House Crashers, etc.). One program I particularly like is the HGTV series, Love It or List It. It seems like the Hunger Games of reno-shows because, once the contractor exposes what lurks behind those walls, the budget is history and that means the loss of a second bathroom or District 12. However, the authentic meaning of the program is revealed in the final five minutes when the interior designer, Hilary Farr, gestures regally at the updated family home and asks the featured couple the all-important question: “Are you going to love it, or list it?”
Understand that Hilary’s question is philosophically larger than an individual choice (i.e., it’s not just about whether the couple intends to stay put or live elsewhere). The refrain more broadly prompts contemplation on the politics of moving. Or, put differently, the show is an extended rumination on place loyalty. Each episode indirectly asks the question: Do we have some kind of ethical obligation to the places where we live (e.g., homes, communities, cities)?
Understand that Hilary’s question is philosophically larger than an individual choice (i.e., it’s not just about whether the couple intends to stay put or live elsewhere). The refrain more broadly prompts contemplation on the politics of moving. Or, put differently, the show is an extended rumination on place loyalty. Each episode indirectly asks the question: Do we have some kind of ethical obligation to the places where we live (e.g., homes, communities, cities)?
I was thinking about Love It or List It as I prepared to teach Jack Gantos’ memoir/meditation on the fate of an enclave of homes in rural Pennsylvania, _Dead End in Norvelt (2011). That is, I could clearly hear the competing values of Hilary (the designer) and David (the realtor) reenacted in the verbal battles between Mom and Dad Gantos over whether they should remain in Pennsylvania or move to Florida.
In the context of the narrative, the parents’ debate goes like this: For Dad Gantos, Norvelt signals only decay. He carps constantly about how the town is eroding, physically and economically, and even participates in its disintegration by helping the local mortician to relocate individual homes to a community in West Virginia. Conversely, Mom Gantos refuses to call time of death on the place Eleanor Roosevelt built, and instead dedicates vigorously to restoration and community building with passionate civic investment.
This is a particularly important conversation where I work (Youngstown, Ohio), as it is for many post-industrial spaces throughout the Midwest. For instance, the subject of place loyalty also appears in the The Oxford Project (2010), an Alex Award-winning mash-up of photo journalism and creative nonfiction focused on the tenacity of a community of residents in small-town Iowa.
In the context of the narrative, the parents’ debate goes like this: For Dad Gantos, Norvelt signals only decay. He carps constantly about how the town is eroding, physically and economically, and even participates in its disintegration by helping the local mortician to relocate individual homes to a community in West Virginia. Conversely, Mom Gantos refuses to call time of death on the place Eleanor Roosevelt built, and instead dedicates vigorously to restoration and community building with passionate civic investment.
This is a particularly important conversation where I work (Youngstown, Ohio), as it is for many post-industrial spaces throughout the Midwest. For instance, the subject of place loyalty also appears in the The Oxford Project (2010), an Alex Award-winning mash-up of photo journalism and creative nonfiction focused on the tenacity of a community of residents in small-town Iowa.
In Dead End in Norvelt, Gantos provocatively asks: What do we do with these aged, stately homes (and towns) that have fallen into disrepair? The question is then contextualized in hard, historical truths about the exploitation of labor, land, and resources. And the problem becomes even thornier when, according to the author, Jack’s father is complicit in the “vanishing act” of Norvelt’s disappearance.
Dad Gantos’ reasoning isn’t all wrong (i.e., he is motivated by the desire to care for his family and claim his portion of the American Dream), nor is it right as he replicates, in microcosm, the mercenary behavior of big businesses that reap fat profits, roll out of town, and refuse to acknowledge what is left behind, similar to Michael Moore’s argument in the classic documentary, Roger and Me (1989).
Another related point of interest: In Gantos’ book, homes are proxies for human lives, as Miss Volker’s obituary for a house destroyed by fire makes clear. The life of the home adopts a human presence (and its death a ghostly aura) when it is consumed in loyal service like the lives of the coal miners referred to many times throughout the text.
In this simple meditation on place loyalty, Gantos causes the reader to wonder what responsibility is owed to places and, ultimately, to each other.
Dad Gantos’ reasoning isn’t all wrong (i.e., he is motivated by the desire to care for his family and claim his portion of the American Dream), nor is it right as he replicates, in microcosm, the mercenary behavior of big businesses that reap fat profits, roll out of town, and refuse to acknowledge what is left behind, similar to Michael Moore’s argument in the classic documentary, Roger and Me (1989).
Another related point of interest: In Gantos’ book, homes are proxies for human lives, as Miss Volker’s obituary for a house destroyed by fire makes clear. The life of the home adopts a human presence (and its death a ghostly aura) when it is consumed in loyal service like the lives of the coal miners referred to many times throughout the text.
In this simple meditation on place loyalty, Gantos causes the reader to wonder what responsibility is owed to places and, ultimately, to each other.
So, what would a teacher do with this information? One answer might be found in the seductive “tricks” or “strategies” for “making do” (de Certeau, 1984, pp. 18-19; 30) practiced by Mom Gantos as she makes a case for remaining in the depressed community of Norvelt. Specifically, Mom Gantos puts into practice the identical “tactics” described by de Certeau (1984) in The Practice of Everyday Life that the less powerful in society might implement in response to oppression (p. 40). For instance, Mom Gantos attempts to establish a barter system by offering a doctor his fee in trade, she creates a secondary economy of gift casseroles, and she does a portion of food gathering by mushrooming at the town dump. These actions may seem trivial in the grand scheme of political resistance, but they do possess a radical quality in that they represent a localized effort to respond to and transform social and economic circumstances that would otherwise seem overwhelming.
Translated to an exercise in composition, I see Dead End in Norvelt as a blueprint for teaching the proposal argument, the most hopeful of claim types because proposal requires not only identification of a problem, but a protocol for solution.
I think Gantos’ book would particularly resonate with students who live in places similar to where I live (i.e., an area of the country pejoratively referred to as the Rust Belt). That is because Dead End in Norvelt makes transparent the process by which the present came to be for such places and, at the same time, offers poetic and humanitarian reasons for people to reclaim, repurpose, and remain.
One final thought: Although we know Dad Gantos eventually gets his way and the family moves from Pennsylvania, Mom Gantos still embodies de Certeau’s vision of the trickster in that her actions effectively destabilize the acquisitive logic of capitalism, one casserole at a time.
Translated to an exercise in composition, I see Dead End in Norvelt as a blueprint for teaching the proposal argument, the most hopeful of claim types because proposal requires not only identification of a problem, but a protocol for solution.
I think Gantos’ book would particularly resonate with students who live in places similar to where I live (i.e., an area of the country pejoratively referred to as the Rust Belt). That is because Dead End in Norvelt makes transparent the process by which the present came to be for such places and, at the same time, offers poetic and humanitarian reasons for people to reclaim, repurpose, and remain.
One final thought: Although we know Dad Gantos eventually gets his way and the family moves from Pennsylvania, Mom Gantos still embodies de Certeau’s vision of the trickster in that her actions effectively destabilize the acquisitive logic of capitalism, one casserole at a time.
Enjoy more of Jack Gantos' Books
Stacy Graber is an Assistant Professor of English at Youngstown State University. Her areas of interest include critical theory, pedagogy, popular culture, and young adult literature.
Please address questions/comments to: [email protected]
Please address questions/comments to: [email protected]
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