NOMADLAND by Jessica Bruder explores the lives of retired or
near-retirement age Americans who have decided to be “houseless” and instead travel
around looking for work. Bruder, an award-winning journalist who teaches at the
Columbia School of Journalism, focuses on Linda May, a woman in her sixties who
optimistically takes on a variety of seasonal jobs like cleaning at campsites
and working at Amazon warehouses in order to make ends meet. Recently, The
New York Times also featured a photo essay on “Overnight in Walmart Parking Lots.” Although
some of those travelers were doing so for pleasure, Bruder instead profiles a new type
of migrant worker, growing since the 2008 recession and driven to living in
cars, vans or RVs due to some combination of issues like job loss, divorce, or health
care costs. She weaves in some
surprising statistics such as that there are “only a dozen counties and one
metro area in America where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a one
bedroom apartment at fair market rent.”
We have purchased a copy of NOMADLAND
– which could possibly be used in Literature Circles with Evicted and/or considered as a summer reading assignment for Senior
English classes; it received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus
and Library Journal.
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