About a quarter of the other kids New York Times columnist Nick Kristof rode the bus with when he was growing up are now dead from drugs, suicide, alcohol, obesity, reckless accidents and other pathologies. Kristof and his spouse, writer Sheryl WuDunn, tell the stories of several of his former classmates from their rural pocket of Oregon in their new book, “Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope.” The book examines the structural causes behind the personal struggles of the working poor and offers policy solutions.
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