Ten Lives: Mona Chalabi on how much wealth it takes to be safe in America
About this Event
Mona Chalabi has spent years using illustrations to translate complex statistics. Now in her new book, “Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrestles with the pressing issue of just how much wealth it takes to feel safe in the United States? Chalabi followed 10 people over five years to document how wealth shaped their lives. Join us for a conversation with Chalabi about those stories and how her own life would intertwine with the subject of her illustrations as she grappled with her own financial safety after her mother’s sudden illness.
Copies of the book will be available to purchase from our bookstore partner Brookline Booksmith and Chalabi will sign following the conversation.
About “Ten Lives”
Anna has a comfortable life in a mansion in Maine thanks to her husband (well, his parents, really) until he suddenly asks for a divorce. In Arizona, Hunter is a U.S. veteran, feeling ashamed about claiming disability benefits. Then there’s Levi, who is trying to pay off his debts from a gambling addiction, one social media video at a time. And Christian, stifled by his job at an Amazon warehouse before a union-organizing effort offers a way out for his comrades and his young kids. Ten people, 10 different incomes, all of them afraid for their futures.
For five years, data journalist Mona Chalabi followed them all, documenting how wealth shaped their feelings, their choices, their identities and their insecurities. She researched the data behind their taxes, groceries, inheritances and so much more to understand the systems that keep people stuck. But then, she too found herself facing the same fears, when her mother’s sudden illness and subsequent medical bills threatened her own financial safety and made the questions she had been writing about all too real. How much money is enough? To live a “good” life? To protect the people you love in an emergency?
Interweaving her own story with those of her interviewees and illustrated throughout with the data visualizations for which Chalabi is renowned, “Ten Lives” asks how much wealth it takes to be safe in the United States. It explores how difficult it is for us to be honest and open about what we have and argues that until we get better at it, we will never be able to address the underlying problems that drive inequality and insecurity for us all.
Ways To Save
WBUR’s Legacy Circle, Murrow Society, Sustainers and Members save $5.00 on tickets to this event. To apply the discount to your ticket purchase online, you’ll need to enter a promo code. You can get your code by emailing [email protected].
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Where is it happening?
USD 0.00 to USD 50.00
