Christmas can be related to Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities:” it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. In “Tinsel: A Search For America’s Christmas Present,” by Loyola alumnus and former Maroon editor-in-chief Hank Stuever, the struggle of the best and worst of Christmastime for millions of Americans is revealed.
“I wanted this story to be about Christmas, but also everything else: our weird economy, our modern sense of home, our often broken hearts and our notions of God. The biggies,” Stuever writes in “Tinsel.”
For most, Black Friday serves one purpose: Christmas shopping. Americans spent more than a half trillion dollars on gifts in 2006 from mid-November to New Year’s Eve, which is “more than we spend on anything else as a people, including the annual bill at that time for ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Stuever writes.
Stuever titles each chapter with the name of a well-known store, such as Best Buy, Target and Hallmark. Each chapter represents its title, either mentioning the store or a theme surrounding the word. The chapter titled “Anthropologie” is a study of people at the mall.
“Research is done on us as consumers, not people,” Stuever said in an interview. “We’re so afraid of giving someone something they don’t want.”
In exposing the depths of the Christmas holidays in suburban America, Stuever discovers the delicate balance of the season and represents the complexity of suburban life.
“People in the suburbs are so hungry for any kind of human connection,” he said. “Black Friday is a cultural experience (and) connection. They may not realize that they just want to be with other people.”
Stuever graduated from Loyola with a bachelor of arts in journalism in 1990. He was a writer and later editor-in-chief of The Maroon, which aroused his interest in people.
“I loved working at The Maroon,” Stuever said. “Ever since writing at The Maroon, I’ve always wanted to write about people.”
Stuever said that he feels like an outsider of the American society, always watching and observing, but never participating — as journalists often do. He said that there is a definite need for well-written nonfiction journalism, and would “go back to school and learn it all” if he could.
“I still have very literal dreams of me missing classes and finishing articles for The Maroon,” he said.
Stuever alludes to the Charles Dickens’ novel, “A Christmas Carol” in his book and discusses the expectation of happiness it sets.
“If you’re not happy at Christmastime, there’s something really wrong with you,” Stuever said.
While writing “Tinsel,” he discovered the difficulty of suburban America in the delicate balance of putting on a perfect Christmas and the struggle of keeping it together.
“I want this book to be an example for people years from now to show how they lived, with all the things they could buy and have,” Stuever said.
“It pulls back the curtain on Christmas and acknowledges people’s hearts. It’s tender to people living seemingly shallow lives.”
Ashley Stevens can be reached at [email protected].
