Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Sarah Smarsh, "Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class"
Host: Emily Everett
Guest: Sarah Smarsh
Date: October 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation between Emily Everett, Managing Editor of The Common, and acclaimed journalist and author Sarah Smarsh about her essay collection, Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class (Scribner, 2024). The discussion explores the evolution of writing and publishing about class in America, the difficulties of gaining recognition for rural and working-class stories, and the persistence required to tell underrepresented truths. Smarsh also shares her perspective on the complexities of identity, place, and bridging worlds as a daughter of Kansas wheat country. The episode closes with a look at her new project about the endangered tallgrass prairie.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining Place and Class (03:16–04:11)

• Setting the Scene:
  Smarsh describes her rural Kansas upbringing on a fifth-generation wheat farm and her decision to return there after living in urban and coastal areas. Place, she says, is central to her work and identity.

  "Place peace? That's very central to my work and just everything about who and what I am. I grew up on a fifth generation wheat farm in Kansas, and while I am not actively farming, I do live in rural Kansas, to which I happily returned after some adventures in major metropolitan and coastal areas." —Sarah Smarsh (03:23)

Reading from "Bone of the Bone" (04:11–08:39)

• Challenges of Writing About Class:
  Smarsh reads from her introduction, sharing the uphill battle to have class-based essays published and adequately compensated—despite writing about undervalued labor:

  “Being underpaid by the world's eminent newspapers and magazines for illuminating socioeconomic struggle would become the central paradox of my work as an essayist, an insult that validates the points I make in their pages about undervalued labor and the chattering classes who can afford to write for peanuts since their wealth is assured by other means.” —Sarah Smarsh (08:27)

How the Discourse on Class Has Changed (09:52–16:50)

• Emergence of Class in National Dialogue:
  Smarsh and Everett discuss how class—once largely absent from American political and cultural conversations—has recently become more visible, but the discussions remain unsophisticated and often miss the complexity of real experience.

  “What has changed is just that you hear the word... you hear our clunky, sophomore language attempting to discuss this thing in the room that we’ve been denying for so long now. Whether we're talking about it well is another matter...” —Sarah Smarsh (09:52)

• Class Blind Spots in Policy and Media:
  Smarsh recounts her own struggles with the FAFSA and how systemic blind spots in both policy and journalism shaped her early focus on class:

  “...even the well-meaning among them... I just would be pulling my hair out hearing their just grossly classist analyses about our political moment...” —Sarah Smarsh (15:26)

Bringing Rural Stories to the Page (16:52–24:21)

• Publishing Gatekeeping and Persistence:
  Smarsh acknowledges the longstanding lack of interest from publishers in rural, farm, and poverty narratives. She recalls advice from mentors who doubted the market for her work, but she credits her “gut” for her persistence.

  “...if they don’t want it, if they don’t want me, then to hell with them. And I sent it and I got into my, my top school, which was Columbia.” —Sarah Smarsh (23:10)

Ten Years of Rejection, Then Recognition (25:50–32:16)

• Long Road to Publication:
  Smarsh describes querying agents for a decade—repeatedly told, “I think you’re a great writer, but I just don’t think anybody would care about this”—and how viral essays changed her fate.

  “For 10 years, Emily. I'm talking about 10 years, I sent, I queried agents and they wrote back or... called... ‘I think that you’re a great writer, but I'm just not sure that anybody would like, care about this.’ ... But I just, I didn't lose any sleep over that… because coming out of poverty... the hell do I have to lose?” —Sarah Smarsh (25:50)

• Publishing Finally Catches Up:
  When the political zeitgeist shifted, so did the market, which Smarsh credits as key in her eventual breakthrough.

  “I think I, the main issue was that... I was seeing something that there wasn't yet space for in the discourse...” —Sarah Smarsh (32:16)

Kansas, Stereotypes, and Political Shifts (38:23–47:28)

• Kansas Then and Now:
  Smarsh reflects on growing up in a practical, non-ideological, feminist-leaning Kansas where necessity trumped dogma. She contrasts past realities with today’s politicized, stereotype-laden narratives about “red state” America.

  “...these ideas about how different regions represent supposedly conservative conservatism or liberalism. It’s a pretty, it’s a pretty short sighted view... All I was ever saying was this is not... If you’re trying to understand what Kansas is... it’s so stupid to not look at least at even... these large groups of people who... don’t vote at all because it’s very different...” —Sarah Smarsh (41:37)

• Power of Media Narratives:
  Persistent broad-brush depictions create self-fulfilling and exclusionary identities, hardening divisions.

  “It’s, it’s, it’s as someone who works with words and believes in truth both objective and subjective, it’s, it’s a dangerous business to just get something flat ass wrong over and over and over and over on the nightly friggin news...” —Sarah Smarsh (46:32)

Dual Consciousness and Bridging Worlds (49:42–60:44)

• Reconciling Working-Class Roots and Writing Life:
  Smarsh acknowledges the “dual consciousness” (citing W.E.B. Du Bois) of living in two worlds: the physical, demanding work of rural Kansas and the intellectual, privileged “chattering class” of publishing.

  “...the defining dual consciousness of my coming of age and still today... is the seeming distance... between, yeah, the labor and the work and the fight to survive that I grew up in and the... relative comforts of the... middle class existence that I have as someone who’s living her dream as an author. Because those two people ... they're the same Sarah...” —Sarah Smarsh (49:42)

• Writing’s Hardness vs. Hard Labor:
  She reflects that writing, when deeply honest, can be as hard as a wheat harvest, just in a different way.

  “...writing... It isn’t actually less hard than a summer wheat harvest. It’s hard in a very different way. And it’s hard in a way that won’t sunburn your corneas.” —Sarah Smarsh (54:33)

• Loneliness of Bridging Worlds:
  Smarsh finds meaning but also a deep loneliness in being the link between two largely unconnected communities.

  “The people I deeply love who are in one of those worlds, and the people I deeply love who are in the other... have never met each other, and I'm the only person they know who's from the other world... That is lonely as hell. And I don't think that'll ever stop being lonely as hell. ...But I get to see both. I get to know both. I get to have a greater understanding of the other because of the moments that I, you know, cross the bridge. And I wouldn't trade it for sure.” —Sarah Smarsh (59:48)

Upcoming Work: The Tallgrass Prairie Project (60:50–64:24)

• Next Book – Ecology and Place:
  Smarsh’s forthcoming work is about the tallgrass prairie, weaving ecology, culture, Indigenous history, and personal narrative. She draws a parallel between overlooked landscapes and overlooked people.

  “...the tall grass prairie is the most endangered ecosystem in North America... The majority of that sort of last stand of the prairie is in my great state of Kansas... It's right here in the middle of this country, just like the people I write about, kind of overlooked, undervalued, not enough people fighting for it.” —Sarah Smarsh (61:14)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Being underpaid by the world's eminent newspapers and magazines for illuminating socioeconomic struggle would become the central paradox of my work as an essayist, an insult that validates the points I make in their pages about undervalued labor.” —Sarah Smarsh (08:27)

• “Now we can talk about it, but we still can't talk about it correctly.” —Emily Everett (16:46)

• “Coming out of poverty ... the hell do I have to lose? Only, only got stuff to gain, nothing to lose.” —Sarah Smarsh (26:24)

• “It has been a sense of consternation over the years is the seeming distance and real distance, but also culturally assigned distance between, yeah, the labor and the work and the fight to survive that I grew up in and ... the relative comforts ... as someone who's ... living her dream as an author.” —Sarah Smarsh (50:07)

• “The people I deeply love who are in one of those worlds, and the people I deeply love who are in the other one of those worlds, have never met each other, and I'm the only person they know who's from the other world.... That is lonely as hell.” —Sarah Smarsh (59:48)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Defining Place and Class: 03:16–04:11
• Book Reading (Class in Publishing): 04:11–08:39
• Discussing Change in Class Discourse: 09:52–16:50
• Publishing Gatekeeping and Persistence: 16:52–24:21
• Path to Publication and Changing Times: 25:50–32:16
• Kansas: Stereotypes and Shifting Realities: 38:23–47:28
• Dual Consciousness and Bridging Worlds: 49:42–60:44
• Upcoming Tallgrass Prairie Book: 60:50–64:24

Tone & Language

Throughout the conversation, Smarsh is candid, incisive, and reflective, blending memoir, social critique, and a strong sense of place. Everett responds with empathy and understanding, sharing personal connections and probing for deeper insights. Rural working-class realities, publishing's structural inequalities, and the complexities of identity are discussed with authenticity and heart—frequently undercut by Smarsh’s wry humor and resilience.

Final Thoughts

Sarah Smarsh’s appearance on the New Books Network offers valuable perspective on the lived realities and systemic barriers faced by working-class Americans—both in literature and life. Her personal journey, persistence amid rejection, nuanced commentary on class, and commitment to both people and place make for a rich, timely conversation about storytelling, social change, and the importance of looking squarely at what America often ignores.