Selling the recession

Take a good, long look at the book cover on the left. Read it, study its lines and colors; maybe even think a little bit about what kind of book this might be...

Now I'd like to have a quick chat about capitalism. As I understand it, one of capitalism's purposes is to allow entrepreneurs sell products wherever there's a demand. People can try to capitalize on anything and everything. And that's exactly what this book is trying to do.

But, I must say, it does seem that books like The Bag Lady Papers are taking things a bit too far. These are, as the New York Times article "Crunch Time: Selling Tales of the Great Downturn" puts it, "layoff lit." They're a sudden burst of memoirs of the experiences of people who have lost their jobs/investments/etc. as a result of the economic downturn. In other words, these books are attempts to capitalize on the weak economy.

Am I going crazy here, or is that a contradiction in terms? Trying to make money off of the fact that people are losing money. I can't quite wrap my head around that one.

The Times article I mentioned earlier talks about the recent rash of recession-themed literature, from memoirs like The Bag Lady Papers by Alexandra Penney, the former editor-in-chief of Self magazine, who was heavily invested in a stockbroker who got himself arrested for fraud; to Janelle Brown's This Is Where We Live, due to be released this June, which focuses on a couple that is about to lose their house.

Now, the authors' and publication companies' hopes are that readers will seek commiseration and hope in these stories of being hurt by and yet surviving the recession; that they'll be able to identify with the authors' struggles. But three questions stick in my mind:
1) Will people really want to read about how much life sucks?
2) Will people be willing and able to buy books to think about how poor they are?
3) Will anyone be able to relate to these books anyway?

I've got to explain that last one. You see, the people who lose their jobs and have the time and energy to write about it are not the people being hurt most by the recession—those people are busy looking for work. No, the people writing these memoirs are, for the most part, economic elites. For example, Penney, author of The Bag Lady Papers, wrote about how she lost so much that she had to sell two of her three houses. I don't know about you, but when I hear that I think, "This lady has no idea what recession means. What right does she have to write a book about it?" Am I going to buy her memoir? No.

(By the way, that smiling woman on the left is the "bag lady" herself, being interviewed about her great financial difficulties.)

Then again, scroll up and take another look at that book cover: It features a young woman wearing a bag, sure; but she's wearing it, oddly enough, fashionably. She's walking like a runway model. (The real face of poverty looks less like this and more like Goodwill and the Salvation Army.) Then there's the tag line: "the priceless experience of loosing it all." Which of those people who actually have lost everything would call their experience "priceless"? Sounds like Penney will be putting a positive spin on poverty, when in reality there's very little positive about it. In real poverty, people lose their homes—and not just two of their three homes; I'm talking about not having a place to live. They can't afford medical care or college or, sometimes, even food. That's not "priceless." That's painful.

From cover design to tag line, The Bag Lady Papers seems not to be targeting people who are actually feeling the harshest effects of the recession. Rather, it's yet another example of the media looking with blinders at their favorite target audience: the middle- and upper-middle classes.

This time, however, that limited consumer focus is hurting producers: Recession literature is not selling well at all. And, although I'm biased—I've only read about the book, not the book itself—so I'm not really the best authority on the subject, I'd still advise you to follow the crowd on this one and avoid "layoff lit" like the plague.

Peace,
Blogdor