No, We Can’t: Racial Tensions and the Great Recession in Benjamin Markovits’ “Obama-Era Novel” You Don’t Have to Live Like This
No, We Can’t: Racial Tensions and the Great Recession in Benjamin Markovits’ “Obama-Era Novel” You Don’t Have to Live Like This

Summary/Abstract: The aims of the paper are twofold. Firstly, it analyses Benjamin Marko- vits’ 2015 novel You Don’t Have to Live Like This as an example of the nascent genre of the “Obama-era novel.” Set in Detroit during Obama’s supposedly post-racial presidency, Markovits’ work offers a critical assessment of its legacy and address- es the problem of growing racial tensions reflecting both the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement and the most recent crisis of white masculinity. Secondly, the novel is read as a literary response to the economic aftermath of the Great Recession following the 2008 global financial crisis. The novel’s depiction of a fictitious corporate-run scheme attempting Detroit’s urban revitalisation is in- terpreted as a critique of the “Yes, we can” culture about to be replaced by the “Trump-era,” which the novel anticipates. Finally, the novel is compared to other examples of “crash fiction”; it is argued that Markovits’ work is a rare example of literature’s deeper and direct engagement with the recent economic crisis.

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