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The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts

Book of the Week: Ep 5 - A downward spiral

Duration: 14 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FM

Available for years

In Monica Potts' book about friendship and lost promise. It's 2015 and Clinton, Monica's home town in the heart of rural America is in steep decline, at the same time, Darci's hopes and dreams have been replaced by a downward spiral of addiction and anxiety. 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

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