This reviewer has taught in the area of New England ( New Hampshire and Maine ) that Ms. Chute describes...and while I have since been teaching in a nearby state, I can tell you that she is right on in her descriptions of many New England, or for that matter, ANY of the rural and too often depressed locales that cover our country.

Often, as was this reviewer's experience, such counties are indeed populated by three or four "Maine" family names that account for a disproportionate amount of the community and surrounding schools. These "families" or really, distended living groups, certainly with no semblage of a nuclear family, tend to always be at the head of the local police department's blotter and also tend to acquire the lion's share of their self admitted need for help and social services.

It is hard not to read Ms. Chute's work without coming to the "conclusions" that she hopes the fair minded reader will avoid. To be sure, everyone's own background and their own growing up experiences definitely have a strong bearing on what one will take away from this book...

Have such families squandered opportunities given to them over the years...Are they just lazy and no good?...Are they just hardluck folks missing out because of battling a day to day existence?...Is education or lack of it and an inability to follow their own interests and preferences into meaningful life experiences that will help them in their personal pursuits and the work world the problem?...Is there something to this problem that everyone is overlooking including those who live and exist in such poverty?...Perhaps combinations of all of this?...