The Weight of This World discussion

This book was to me a Road To Damascus experience. I work in criminal law in the author's state, and while I knew our clients (I work in defense) were suffering, I didn't have a way into their hearts and minds. And even that's too limiting a statement about the world this book opens, the world this book loves and respects, is proud of and grieves for.

Oh, you know, some savvy Hollywood person will buy the rights and turn it into a shoot-em-up, or an anthem to, well, I don't know, a movie that caters to all the angry people in the world.

But it's so much more. Two men who grew up as brothers, both injured in so many ways, ways we read about, see on the TV, I imagine, although I don't have one. I came away from this book the way I came away from The Stranger, the way I came away from The Grapes Of Wrath, although it doesn't have that book's sentimentality. I came away understanding a world that had been staring me in the face for years, but that I had no real access to, except after all the lives that could be damaged had already been damaged, unable to grasp the daily events that brought our clients where they found themselves.

I won't do spoilers, don't do reviews. I live to read and read to live. How did the world miss this book? Why did they not read it? Maybe they skimmed it. Don't know. I'm just flabbergasted, that's all, and when I'm ready, I'm going to read Joy's other books. And, I expect, get my eyes opened some more.

Read it? Why do you think it's been ignored? I heard the author say on NPR that he wrote it because these people he knew got no respect. They do now.