We all code switch, whether we know it or not. The side of us that friends see may be a very different person to who we are around family. Social situations cause us to become chameleons; adapting to our environment and hiding our vulnerability. Academic situations generally take that to an extreme and that is brought into vivid Technicolor life in this short story by Louise Finnigan.
The story details Jade’s college assignment; interviewing three men from ‘her side of the tracks’ who comment on their lives, hopes and feelings about being from (and the possibility of ever leaving) one of the roughest estates in Manchester. It is a beautiful love letter to both this city and the people who fall through the cracks to be forgotten but still like in its gritty heart, somehow surviving but never thriving. In a journey to finding better opportunities you end up sacrificing a lot in order to do so. I loved seeing Jade go through this process even though it broke my heart slightly because it is so honest.
Not only does climbing up and out of a
gutter, estate, project, ghetto, hood, or whatever you want to call it take
hard work but to one talks about the things that are loved but also lost during
that climb as well as how many times you stay quiet in the face of an unjustifiable
assumption or stereotype posed to you by someone who has no idea what a working
class life actually looks like. This book was a very moving and loving portrait
of a small part of what makes Manchester so unique and beautiful.
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