Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream, by Adam W. Shepard

What would you do if you only had $25 and a knapsack of belongings to start off with, no place to stay and no job to speak of? And where would you be in a year?

These are some of the questions that author Adam Shepard set out to answer and write about. And that's ground zero of Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - the other side of life that so many live yet so few know about.

Taking a train ride from his hometown to a random location, the author made his own scratch beginning and somehow managed not to fall through the cracks of society. Instead, he harnessed his resources - a lesson that, given the current global economic situation, seems a lesson worth repeating. From a homeless shelter to a dwarven habitat built in an attic, from temporary work toward permanent work, the book documents one man's path through a scenic route of life of the invisible of the United States. The characters walk, saunter and even march (to the beat of their own drums, of course) off the pages even as successes and setbacks punctuate their progress - and the author's progress. The book is almost impossible to put down.

While the author may have originally set out to write a rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, it doesn't come across that way. There are too many differences between the authors to make it a rebuttal - instead, it helps to form a bit more of the picture of what low income America looks like. In the case of Scratch Beginnings, I find that the same spirit which sent the author on his journey is the same spirit that brought him back with a book. While the privileged go to Europe or other places to obtain 'culture', the author went into America's relatively undiscovered socioeconomic back yard - which for some is as separate a country as one whose name they cannot pronounce.

There are many ways to look at this book. Maybe it's social commentary, maybe it's gonzo journalism, maybe it's even a bit of anthropology. Ultimately, the reader decides - but what it is remains constant: a wonderful book with a positive theme. The profanity of some characters is balanced with an unquenchable thirst for success - for moving up the socioeconomic ladder toward stability. The author writes, simply, that it can be done - but that it is not easy and that it requires qualities that, perhaps, are not as apparent in society today as they were 50 years ago. This is not to say that those in unfortunate circumstance are there by choice; this is to say that there is hope.

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream scores a KnowProSE.com 10 out of a possible 10. This is a book that everyone should read - it's packed full of inspiration that some may not have experienced or have lost along the way. It reminds people that every person that they pretend isn't there has their own story. And it makes one wonder how many stories are actually out there, floating in a pool of economic distress and clinging to floats of hope and grit... waiting for the opportunity to climb out, be it by a thrown rope or a held rod - or kicking around in uncertain currents.

It could be you. Check out the book's website, ScratchBeginnings.com, for more information.