Richard Shelton

Once in a while, a book comes along that redefines the concept of family. Frank McCourt did it with Angela’s Ashes; Annie Dillard did it with An American Childhood. In Nobody Rich or Famous, award-winning poet and author Richard Shelton immerses us in the hardscrabble lives of his Boise, Idaho, clan during the 1930s and ’40s. This is memoir in its finest tradition, illuminating today’s cultural chasm between the haves and have-nots. It is the true story of a family and how it got that way.