Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

by Jessica Bruder

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.”

On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of life: a former professor, a McDonald’s vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others—including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May.

In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,” Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying 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 a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await 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.

• ISBN10: 039324931X
• ISBN13: 9780393249316
• Publish Date: 26 September 2017 (first published 19 September 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: WW Norton & Co
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[starbell]

If I could rate it lower I would. The first few chapters of the book were somewhat interesting. Then it became increasingly repetitive where she just talked about the same things over and over again. Workampers, how awful their conditions were, how everyone travelled around and weren't allowed to stay in the same campsite for long. Then, 70% into the book she reveals she smokes marijuana - no idea what for, probably not legally, given that at that point it was hardly legal anywhere in the US. Then after this, she reveals she smuggled in urine to pass a drug test to work for Amazon. After this I immediately stopped reading and decided I would rather read a better book, hopefully by a better person.