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As the presidential campaign has unfolded, the candidates have traded polemics about wealth, class warfare, taxes, dependency and the role of government.

And while it may be uncomfortable to admit, some Americans are simply more financially successful than others. But why do some achieve wealth, while others struggle? Why does one woman make it to the executive suite, while another man drives a taxi? And what do we think explains our prosperity — or lack thereof?

All Things Considered host Robert Siegel visited North Carolina's Research Triangle area, to ask people from very different walks of life how they account for their economic station in life. In the final installment of the series, we talk with several people who are on some of the lowest rungs of the economic ladder — but are working hard to move up.

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The child of a farmworker, Yesenia Cuello aspires to become an RN. She supports herself through school by working at McDonalds.

Mark Danielewski is the author of The Fifty Year Sword.

When I was 12, the movie was forbidden. What my parents matter-of-factly declared too scary, friends confirmed with added notes of hysteria: "Nothing more terrifying!" "The most horrifying film ever made!" "People pass out!"

In Provo, Utah, where I grew up, Mormon children — and in my world that meant all of my friends — reported how just a glimpse resulted in actual, irreversible possession.

No one, though, had explicitly forbidden the book. And one day I found it — on one of those unvisited shelves that at some point cross over from being a place about reading to a plank consigned to storage — beside a copy of The Joy of Sex and something called Slaughterhouse-Five.

Still, I was careful not to let my parents know that I was now in possession of this Bantam edition with its glossy purple cover framing a curiously enigmatic image. It had hues of apricot, and was gauzy in a way that was vaguely feminine, even erotic. It was nothing like the movie poster — with that silhouette of Father Merrin, the Jesuit priest, about to enter the house of the possessed girl, brim hat on, valise in hand, caught in a hazy beam of light. In another context the illumination might have suggested something promising and welcoming rather than the dim dread that poster still evokes in me.

The book, however, felt warm and forgiving. And despite what the words within conveyed, those soft edges felt much different: safe, like a smoked glass through which to view dark suns.

Emman Montalvan

Mark Danielewski is also the author of House of Leaves.

Lady Rhea is not the kind of witch you'll find in a pointy hat this Halloween. She is a real workaday witch, grinding out a living selling magic products in a booth at Original Products, a grocery store-sized botanica in the Bronx. She's been a practicing Wiccan for nearly four decades, making her one of the longest-serving high priestesses in New York City.

"I am a Wiccan high priestess and Witch queen," she says. "My age — I've been in the craft since '73. I have a lot of coven people and people who are attached to me over the last years, so one of them coined me 'Pagan Mother.' Call them up and I'll say 'Hello, are you listening? This is Pagan Mother, call me.' "

Faith In The Five Boroughs: A City Witch

With less than a week left until Election Day, Superstorm Sandy has changed the course of both campaigns. NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin, Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg and Matt Continetti, editor of The Washington Free Beacon talk about the campaigns in the homestretch.