Nomadland

Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

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Jessica Bruder: Nomadland (Paperback, 2018, W. W. Norton & Company)

Paperback, 320 pages

Published Sept. 4, 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company.

ISBN:
978-0-393-35631-1
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3 stars (1 review)

From the North Dakota beet fields to California's National Forest campgrounds to Amazon's Texas CamperForce program, employers have discovered a new low-cost labor pool: transient older Americans. With Social security coming up short, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands, forming a growing community of migrant laborers dubbed "workampers." In a secondhand vehicle christened "Van Halen," Bruder hits the road to tell an eye-opening tale of the American economy's dark underbelly. -- Page 4 of cover.

6 editions

reviewed Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

Well Written and Breezy, But Overpromises

3 stars

I enjoyed the prose here, and Bruder clearly has affection for her subjects, but I feel like this book overpromised about saying something important about America and the economy, but was really just a look at a pretty small subculture.

I was struck by how small the subculture this book covered was. It's hard to say it's reflective of a larger trend when it seems to be just a few thousand people in the nation.

One thing that struck me here were that this is a very pre-pandemic book. The economy and society has changed a lot in the few years since it was written, and I'd enjoy a followup about how they made it through.