This was really popular when I worked at Phoebe. The author blurb reminded me of Bastard out of Carolina, but the first pages made me think it would be less wretched. Nope! Just as wretched, though I was spared the misery of connecting emotionally with the protagonist. Which doesn't mean that Carolyn Chute failed where Dorothy Allison succeeded, just that their effects were different.
I liked how Chute showed how invisible the underclass is to the wealthier eye, and how money does not equal class, and how poverty does not kill decency.