In Monica Potts' powerful book about friendship and lost promise in 21st rural America she finds that her dreams depend on education and, frustratingly, chance. Meanwhile, Darci takes a different direction, and in young adulthood the friends' paths and life chances diverge. Kelly Burke reads.

Monica Potts is an acclaimed journalist and here she sets out to understand generational cycles of poverty and hardship that continue to blight the lives of rural communities in contemporary America. At the same time, she reconnects with her childhood friend, Darci, and the big economic and social questions she's asking become personal. Darci, her talented and brilliant friend was now homeless, jobless and an addict. Her fate could have been Monica's, and so begins a journey to find out why the two women's lives took such different paths.

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard Show less