Monica Potts grew up in the small, rural town of Clinton in Arkansas. In The Forgotten Girls she revisits the town in her later life, having made a success of her life as a journalist. Many of the girls she grew up with still live in Clinton but they have had very different experiences than the author – some are dead, a few have had children while still teenagers, and many have developed addictions. All of them live in poverty and it is not unusual for them to have substantial debts. This book is an attempt to explore the reasons behind the different lives of those girls who stayed and those who did not.
The author intertwines her own life story with that of her childhood friend Darci who is a single mother with a drug dependency. She explores what she calls “diseases of despair” such as drunken driving, suicide and drug overdoses which disproportionately affect the young women who live in poor, rural areas. She tries to determine why some women seem to have very limited options and restricted choices which, she feels, stunt their lives, reduce their life expectancy and prevent them from reaching their potential. She looks at family expectations, education, job opportunities, politics and religion and how they come together to forge a culture that has certain expectations of its young women and seems to punish them when they fail.
This is a book written with passion because the author has seen what has happened to people she once knew well. She is angry because the system does not help young, bright women and condemns them to a restricted and impoverished life. It’s quite a sad book but also very thought provoking.
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