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Nomadland : surviving America in the twenty-first century / Jessica Bruder.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2017]Edition: First EditionDescription: xiv, 273 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393249316 (hardcover)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 331.3980973 23
LOC classification:
  • HD6280 .B77 2017
Contents:
Foreword -- The squeeze inn -- The end -- Surviving America -- Escape plan -- Amazon town -- The gathering place -- The rubber tramp rendezvous -- Halen -- Some unbeetable experiences -- The H word -- Homecoming -- Coda: the octopus in the coconut -- Acknowledgments -- Notes.
Summary: From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers." In a secondhand vehicle she christens "Van Halen," Jessica Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying her irrepressible protagonist, Linda May, and others, from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells an eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy -- foreshadowing the precarious future that awaits many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable "Earthship" home, they have not given up hope.
List(s) this item appears in: From_technical_unit | AC Books - Nov2024
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Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
American Corner Collection American Corner Collection Matheson Library American Corner Book Collection AC 331.3980973 B888 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 163482

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-273).

Foreword -- The squeeze inn -- The end -- Surviving America -- Escape plan -- Amazon town -- The gathering place -- The rubber tramp rendezvous -- Halen -- Some unbeetable experiences -- The H word -- Homecoming -- Coda: the octopus in the coconut -- Acknowledgments -- Notes.

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers." In a secondhand vehicle she christens "Van Halen," Jessica Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying her irrepressible protagonist, Linda May, and others, from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells an eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy -- foreshadowing the precarious future that awaits many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable "Earthship" home, they have not given up hope.

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