Quiet Street: On American Privilege

 

• 作者坦然承認他和堡壘中的其他成員一樣，享有與生俱來的特權。「我們甚至從來不用排隊等候，真的。」揭示社會頂端的菁英階層，一代又一代，延續著社會上不平等的循環，以鞏固自身的財富、權力和人脈。

 

• 「揭示美國社會道德感低落，不平等一再被輕易複製的現象。然而，與大多數類似的故事不同，這個故事讓我相信積極變革的可能......」- 瑪姬‧尼爾森（Maggie Nelson）《自由論》（On Freedom）作者

 
　　1984年出生於紐約上東區的暢銷小說家和記者尼克‧麥克唐納（Nick McDonell），家庭社交圈都是社會頂層的菁英份子，擁有廣泛人脈和奢華生活。
 
　　也因為這樣的家庭背景，尼克一路就讀貴族學校並從哈佛、牛津等知名學府畢業，從小練習駕駛風帆、穿梭時尚盛宴、到世界各地旅行、搭乘私人飛機前往度假勝地......這些與生俱來的資源，只是堡壘內成員的日常的一部分，「我們甚至從來不用排隊等候，真的。」
 
　　作者以小說家的筆觸，揭露了一個由金錢、權力和人脈的建構出的世界，這是專屬於最頂層1％權貴份子的堡壘。這本書提醒我們，特權不僅僅是一種個人經歷，而是一種長期存在的殘酷現實現象，背後的系統複雜且易於延續，一代又一代複製不平等的循環，對個人及社會的影響，比所知的更為深遠！對於關心社會正義和公平的讀者來說，是一部不可或缺的作品，激勵人們反思並採取行動，以追求更公正、平等的未來。(文/博客來編譯)

A bold and deeply personal exploration of wealth, power, and the American elite, exposing how the ruling class--intentionally or not--perpetuates cycles of injustice

＂[A] story about American inequity, and how it mindlessly, immorally, reproduces itself. Unlike most such stories, however, this one left me believing in the possibility...of drastic change.＂ --Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom

Nick McDonell grew up on New York City’s Upper East Side, a neighborhood defined by its wealth and influence. As a child, McDonell enjoyed everything that rarefied world entailed--sailing lessons in the Hamptons, school galas at the Met, and holiday trips on private jets. But as an adult, he left it behind to become a foreign correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Quiet Street, McDonell returns to the sidewalks of his youth, exhuming with bracing honesty his upbringing and those of his affluent peers. From Galápagos Island cruises and Tanzanian safaris to steely handshakes and schoolyard microaggressions to fox-hunting rituals and the courtship rites of sexually precocious tweens, McDonell examines the rearing of the ruling class in scalpel-sharp detail, documenting how wealth and power are hoarded, encoded, and passed down from one generation to the next. What’s more, he demonstrates how outsiders--the poor, the nonwhite, the suburban--are kept out.

Searing and precise yet ultimately full of compassion, Quiet Street examines the problem of America’s one percent, whose vision of a more just world never materializes. Who are these people? How do they cling to power? What would it take for them to share it? Quiet Street looks for answers in a universal experience: coming to terms with the culture that made you.

NICK MCDONELL is the best-selling author of Twelve, The Council of Animals, and several other publications. He is also known for his journalism on wartime Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nepal, with work published in TIME, The New Yorker, and the London Review of Books. McDonnell studied at Harvard and St. Antony’s College, Oxford and is from New York City.