My absurd experiences in North America over the years

Li Fu then stayed at the Seven Springs Manor for about seven days.

He has hardly left the house these days.

Aside from accompanying Ivanka on walks around the estate, he spent most of his time sitting on the sofa in his study, looking at the manuscripts she had previously compiled.

Li Fu had no confidence in the literary quality of CP from the beginning, nor did he trust his judgment, so he suggested that Ivanka participate in the project, fearing that the resulting manuscript would be neither fish nor fowl.

During her pregnancy, Ivanka archived and organized the materials collected by the CP's people around the Great Lakes, selected the most suitable materials, and then tried to string them together into a storyline.

She also read through the initial manuscript page by page, with blue sticky notes pasted all over the margins. Some were annotations, some were questions, and some were things she felt needed to add. But as her belly grew bigger, her energy became limited and she began to feel sleepy.

The manuscript was handed over to someone else to complete. CP was somewhat dissatisfied after reading it, so he called Li Fu to come.

"Look at this chapter," Ivanka said, sitting on the other side of the sofa and handing over a manuscript. "His childhood parts are too fragmented, just scattered memories. Readers skip ahead before they can even get into the story."

Li Fu took it and flipped through a few pages; it was indeed as she had said.

This first draft of CP is much more complete than those other materials, but it still has structural problems. It's like piecing together a bunch of memory fragments, lacking a thread that runs through the whole thing.

To put it bluntly, it's too general; it tries to express too much but lacks a main theme.

"How do you think it should be changed?" Li Fu wanted to hear Ivanka's opinion.

Ivanka leaned back on the sofa, gently placing her hand on her protruding belly. After thinking for a moment, she said, "We should first describe the entire valley, not to highlight the scenery, but the smell, the sounds, the oppressive feeling that makes it hard to breathe. Let the reader smell the coal dust of that place first, and then start telling its story."

The area around the Great Lakes was once the most important industrial zone in the United States and even the world.

This area relies on a vast transportation network comprised of waterways, canals, and railways along the Great Lakes, which facilitates the transport of iron ore from west of Lake Superior and coal from Appalachian mines.

The abundance of iron and coal has given rise to heavy industries such as steel, automobiles, and chemicals.

These heavy industries spurred the development of industrial cities that are still world-renowned today, such as Pittsburgh, the steel capital; Detroit, the automobile city; Cleveland, the center of heavy machinery manufacturing; and Chicago, the largest industrial city.

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, in order to wage ideological warfare and highlight their own superiority, capitalists ceded some profits to the working class.

Back then, a blue-collar worker could support a family of five with just one job. They could live in a detached house with a small yard, drive a pickup truck, and enjoy a leisurely life.

However, with industrial upgrading, technological innovation, and the complete collapse of the Soviet Union, capitalists stopped pretending and began to focus solely on profits. The era of large-scale industry declined, the economy began to avoid practical matters, and the financial industry, which could make quick money, soared rapidly.

The area around the Great Lakes is no longer what it used to be, and is now scarred and devastated due to industrial decline.

The American base, which was once proud of its American identity and celebrated the fall of the Soviet Union, has become a tragic figure of this era.

The sense of oppression and the smell of coal dust that Ivanka described are indeed a reflection of the locals' experience.

They miss the past terribly because their lives are now completely shrouded in recession, drugs, alcoholism, and broken families.

"You've worked hard these past few days," Li Fu gently stroked Ivanka's cheek. "Leave the rest to me!"

"It's alright, I'm bored here, I always need to find something to do," Ivanka leaned on his shoulder, "I always feel like this book is missing something."

"What's missing?" Li Fu asked.

He actually knew what was missing from the book.

It lacks a specific character who runs through the main storyline, a protagonist that readers can recognize after finishing the story.

It's not about the overly generalized white working class depicted now, nor the numerous real-life cases in the investigation report, but rather the most prominent among these cases—those with childhood memories and a complete life trajectory.

Ivanka, on the other hand, believes that there needs to be a life to refer to, such as another person who broke out of the tragic Great Lakes Rust Belt and eventually had an impressive resume.

The two storylines run parallel, and their final outcomes echo each other.

After listening, Li Fu genuinely felt that Ivanka was indeed very talented, and her suggestion was very similar to the one written by Vance.

However, Vance's story unfolds along two parallel paths: one is his current life at Yale Law School, and the other is his memories of his turbulent childhood.

Li Fu reached out and pulled out a few pages from the stack of manuscripts on the coffee table, turning to a particular section.

"Among the materials your father sent people to collect, there was a young man named Shelby. His father was an unemployed blue-collar worker who bought a truck to try to become a truck driver in order to make a living after losing his job..." Li Fu found a protagonist who best fit Vance's childhood.

"As a result, her father was in a car accident not long after, and from then on, the burden of life fell on her mother. She began to drink heavily, use drugs, and even commit domestic violence... It's despairing to watch," Ivanka said, shaking her head as she learned about the case.

Shelby grew up in such a family and dropped out of school early to work in an auto parts factory, but the factory moved to Mexico a few years later.

He later worked as a security guard and a truck driver, but he couldn't escape his predicament. In the end, like his mother, he began to drink heavily and became addicted to drugs, struggling in poverty and extreme spiritual deprivation.

This material is very typical and a very common phenomenon in the Great Lakes rust belt. As for the successful Vance, he is an exception.

Just like Allen Iverson's journey from the slums to becoming a basketball superstar, it was full of chance.

Li Fu handed the page to Ivanka, saying, "I think he should be the protagonist of this book."

"However, we still need to find another real source, such as Shelby's childhood friend, who had a similar childhood to Shelby, escaped the Rust Belt thanks to the help of relatives, and ultimately had a different life."

Li Fu agreed with this and then began the search.

Ultimately, Ivanka was the most familiar with the candidate, and she found a perfect match from the materials.

This person is none other than Vance himself. He has already received a scholarship to Yale Law School and is about to embark on a brilliant future.

"But the reality is that he and Shelby have absolutely nothing to do with each other!" Ivanka frowned slightly.

“It doesn’t matter. Literary creation doesn’t have to pursue the truth of everything. We can set them up as cousins ​​or neighbors.” Li Fu believes that it doesn’t matter. “Imagine that they have the same childhood experience, one struggles for the rest of his life in the rust belt, and the other escapes and restarts his life. That’s enough dramatic conflict.”

"As expected, Dad was right," Ivanka said, looking at him with considerable pride.

"What did your father say?" Li Fu asked.

"Dad said that only if you come in person can this be done well," Ivanka said, gently kissing his forehead, her eyes full of tenderness and admiration.