Out of work, out of luck: Edward Anderson's Hungry Men

As the unemployment numbers rise in the current economic troubles, it's hard not to think of the flotsam of the Great Depression years, the men and boys and whole families who went on the road or lost their homes. We have yet to experience anything on this scale, yet depression novels and films, focused on people who have lost their moorings, their confidence, their position on the social ladder, allow us precious insight into a world coming apart, a whole society in free fall. Such works give us glimpses of the human reality behind the facts and figures, behind the government programs meant to relieve this widespread suffering. The reforms set in motion by the New Deal were meant to keep this from happening again. Only time will tell where the present recession will lead or how it might be reflected in books and films in the next few years. A. O. Scott has already detected a shift toward downbeat, smallscale realism in recent independent films like Kelly Reichardt's moving Wendy and Lucy, shot before the recession began, which centers on a woman whose life has bottomed out, who has taken to the road with her dog, someone with nothing to fall back on but her own will to go on.