Tightrope

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are American journalists who have worked together on four books, in addition to Tightrope, and have been awarded some of journalism’s highest honors; in 1990, they were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China, making them the first husband and wife team to do so. WuDunn is also a banker, business executive, and lecturer, while Kristof has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since 2011. In Tightrope, they draw on their own backgrounds—and particularly Kristof’s experience growing up in Yamhill, Oregon—to paint a picture of America’s struggling working-class communities.

Throughout the book, the authors draw on their own proximity to the people they’re describing. While their careers reporting in various countries have given them insight into people’s experiences of hardship and suffering around the world, the struggles of people in Yamhill were especially hard to write about because Kristof had grown up with many of them and WuDunn had been visiting Yamhill with him since their engagement. Kristof and WuDunn are also characters in the book, insofar as their own experiences show the potential for upward mobility that was once more widespread in the United States. Kristof grew up in a stable, two-parent household, with parents who valued education and encouraged him to attend college, which he ultimately did, going to Harvard. WuDunn is the child of Chinese immigrants who invested in her education, sending her to Ivy League universities. This kind of social progress no longer exists for many Americans, and even for Kristof and WuDunn, there were many additional factors in place that allowed them to flourish in the United States. The authors explore these factors throughout the book, such as an emphasis on education, and families who prioritized and encouraged school, as well as the existence of stable partnerships between their parents.

By drawing on insights from their own upbringings and describing the lives of individuals with whom they have a close personal relationship, the authors are bolstering one of the book’s main missions, which is to humanize those living in poverty. Poverty is often painted as a personal failing in the United States, and those who are poor as weak and lazy. By showing the full humanity of those affected, and the ways in which society has failed them since childhood and through successive generations, the authors aim to reverse that perception.