Keith Flynn
Hickory – With photography by Charter Weeks and text by Keith Flynn, the 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 nearly 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This is an important historical document raising the issues of social collapse, economic inequality and the disintegration of the economic security that was once the foundation of the American economy.
Keith Flynn is the author of 6 books of poetry, most recently “The Skin of Meaning,” and two books of prose. Flynn is also the founder and publisher, for over 25 years, of the Asheville Poetry Review.
Charter Weeks
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.
Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession is available from Redhawk Publications, Hickory North Carolina. ISBN 978-1-952485-35-0. Order copies at https://tinyurl.com/RedhawkProsperityGospel
