Your favourite novels about grinding hardship

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

Apparently these really cheer me up. I'm not talking about misery/abuse memoirs, but things like the following:

Cold Mountain, Charles Frazer
The Good Earth, Pearl S Buck
Gap Creek, Robert Morgan
Night Waking, Sarah Moss.

Do you know what I mean? Books that make you think, 'I'm so glad I don't have to work that hard. I'm sure I'll remember more in a bit.

The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgeson Burnett doesn’t really fit the bill as it’s got a happy (and quite cheesy and implausible) ending, but it’s a great depiction of genteel poverty and how incredibly vulnerable women on their own were - trying to find respectable work and aware that any bout of illness could lead to homelessness and penury, and no plan for how they would survive when they get old.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy - pure grimness.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (my favourite book)

The Year of the Runaways

Americanah

Small Island

The Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante

Any book by Willa Cather

Independent People by Halldor Laxness

All of Zola and all of Catherine Cookson.

The woman who walked into doors, Roddy Doyle

Reading this thread I realise I definitely have a ‘type’ when it comes to reading and this thread is everything!

Also remembered Elif Shafak, Honour.

@Latenightreader

I came here to recommend A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and if you can find Joy in the Morning by her it is also lovely.

I was coming on to recommend “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”!

I read it yearly along with JITM.

Betty Smith has two other books I’m planning to read.

I watched the 1941 movie version of ATGIB yesterday on YouTube.

I first read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn when I was a teenager and loved it. Last year our book group read it, and it was amazing to read it again after so many years. I still loved it, and found myself sympathising a bit more with Francie's mum this time!

Small Island is this weeks National Theatre free on line production.

I’m unreasonably annoyed that I can’t get a tree grows in Brooklyn for kindle!

@CarlottaValdez, dang! I have it on my kindle but I am in the US ..

With regards to Helen Forrester, her poor ears! I still wince when I think of her poor ears and how cold she was. Her parents were utterly disgraceful.

Wild Swans by Jung Chan

@mstrotwood

Independent People by Halldor Laxness

Good shout! Just sitting in the dark eating refuse fish waiting for spring....don’t get much more miserable than that.

Life and Times of Michael K, Coetzee
The Notebook, Agota Kristof
Voices From Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexeivitch

Neil Gun "The Silver Darlings"

Weren't Helen Forrester's parents originally from a very wealthy family who ended up living in dire poverty? Can't remember why, a huge family row or something? Then they were completely hopeless and unable to cope at all ?

Ooh, I forgot about The Silver Darlings, havent read it for years but it was a favourite when I was young. I think theres a special quality to Scottish misery, its the added Prebyterianism.

Her father went bankrupt IIRC Clawdy

I'd like to add The Personal History Of Rachel Dupree as an unrelenting hardship story.

A Kestrel for a Knave

I've been reading the Helen Forrester book absolutely non stop since the recommendations on this thread and have now started the second.

What a fascinating life she led after such hardship. I would love to know what happened to her siblings since, but there doesn't appear to be any information out there

Also, her parents were appalling

A real life exposé, Nickel and dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich and a similar book by Florence Aubenas (can’t remember the name) about struggling with dead end minimum wage jobs.

It’s called The Night Cleaner.

Hidden lives by Margaret Forster. It's semi autobiographical and depicts the lives of women in her family throughout the generations. Back breaking hardship and work. One of my absolute favourites. Give it a go - you won't be disappointed!