What a lot of folks feel - and some of the other commenters have mentioned this - is that there isn't a very clear way for somebody who's working-class, who is middle-income to really get ahead in 21st century America. That implicates our education system. It also implicates our local and regional economies. And I think that folks will expect Trump to fix a lot of those things. But, of course, it's a really tall order, and it's not going to happen overnight.
James VanceThe issue that's really, really concerning is that you have eight million prime age men who have dropped out of the labor force, folks who aren't even looking for work. You can create job growth all day, but unless you start to do the things that bring those labor force dropouts back into the job market, you're not going to solve the problems.
James VanceUnderstand, my own politics aren't necessarily interchangeable with what any of my characters believe. You could take each of the characters in On the Ropes, and I'd probably be in sympathy with a different one on any given day, depending on what's going on in the world.
James VanceWhat a lot of folks feel - and some of the other commenters have mentioned this - is that there isn't a very clear way for somebody who's working-class, who is middle-income to really get ahead in 21st century America. That implicates our education system. It also implicates our local and regional economies. And I think that folks will expect Trump to fix a lot of those things. But, of course, it's a really tall order, and it's not going to happen overnight.
James VanceOne of the things I really worry about is that if you don't see middle class wage growth, if you don't see the economy in certain areas of the country, the middle part of the country, starting to come back in the same way that it's doing especially well, let's say, in California or New York, then people are going to become politically frustrated.
James VanceI used to pile on the detail, which was probably a way of hedging my bets while I was working out my own way of doing things. I've cut it back over the years, but some of the descriptions can still be still pretty dense. So the answer is somewhere between fairly detailed and maybe too detailed. Fortunately, people are seeing the final pages and not my raw script.
James VanceI've been asked if I'd consider doing Ropes as a straight novel - which is flattering, I suppose - but I can't imagine why I'd want to limit myself that way. There's a certain immediacy we gain from that specific image of Fred being struck by a revelation, of those union workers appearing from the shadows in an alley, of a lonely woman wondering for just a moment if she should make a pass at this young man in her hotel room
James Vance