...[a] devastating, revelatory book ... Despite the hardships and her meager income, May is ebullient, speaking in exclamation points. 'Hell-ooo-ooo!' is her usual greeting. An indomitable spirit, she’s the perfect choice for Bruder to follow ... Bruder writes in an evenhanded, impartial tone, avoiding polemicism. She does, however, insert herself into the narrative, sometimes intrusively ... When Bruder does stand aside, Nomadland soars. Her subjects are self-sufficient, proud people. Many in their 60s and beyond, they should be entering Shakespeare’s sixth age of man, 'into the lean and slippered pantaloon/ With spectacles on nose and pouch/ On side.' Instead they are sans homes, sans money, sans security, sans everything, except their dignity and self-reliance.
What photographer Jacob Riis did for the tenement poor in How the Other Half Lives (1890) and what novelist Upton Sinclair did for stockyard workers in The Jungle (1906), journalist Bruder now does for a segment of today’s older Americans forced to eke out a living as migrant workers. ... In the best immersive-journalism tradition, Bruder records her misadventures driving and living in a van and working in a beet field and at Amazon. Tying together the book is the story of Linda May, a woman in her sixties who takes on crushing jobs with optimistic aplomb. Visceral and haunting reporting.
...an important if frustrating new work influenced by such classics of immersion journalism as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed ... Nomadland is part of a fleet of recent books about the gig economy. More than most, it’s able to comfortably contain various contradictions ... Bruder is a poised and graceful writer. But her book is plagued by odd evasions. Take race, the major one. She writes that 'there is hope on the road' — a blinkered view in 2017, after the passage of Arizona SB 1070, which required law enforcement to request the immigration papers of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally (portions of the bill have since been overturned). Not to mention that in the light of the death of Philando Castile, among others ... These omissions don’t doom the book; but they do mark it. You ache for the Gulf War veteran who tells Bruder, 'I survived the Army. I can survive Amazon.' But you also ache for the ones without even this option, who don’t even merit a mention.
...a compelling look at a weirdly camouflaged swath of society that’s more entwined around us than we realize ... These nomads are not necessarily to be pitied. They are inventive and savvy, frugal and generous. When they gather at a campground for bring-your-own-topping baked potato night, they are, as one put it, 'hiding in plain sight' ... Bruder is gentle with them, not judging nor theorizing too much about consequences to follow.This is important, eye-opening journalism, presented for us to contemplate: What if?
In Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, writer Jessica Bruder is pursuing a moving target: the new class of Americans who have traded in real estate for 'wheel estate,' having lost their mortgages, their savings, and their dreams in the Great Recession or individual disasters, to become 'workampers' ... Bruder tackles her task with heaps of reportorial detail and narrative flair ... But while her prices and statistics punctuate the narrative, Bruder also manages to tap into the spiritual, the metaphorical, and the hopeful ... Is this American resilience, or American denial? Bruder doesn’t shrink from the question ... Bruder’s answer is to outfit a van named Halen and go on the road. The result is this up-close look at the workampers, their world, and what this moment says about America ...a refreshingly optimistic one, even amidst the bleak analysis. Bruder not only writes what she sees, but she eloquently makes some sense of it.
...[a] stunning and beautifully written book ... What forces set these nomads in motion? Here I wish Bruder had given us a view from beyond the driver’s seat ... Those huge, billowing clouds of topsoil that drove millions from their homes now seem safely tucked away in sepia-tinted photos of a bygone past. But without ominous clouds above to warn us of what lies ahead, the powerful force of automation and the destruction of any safety net may silently push more and more of us onto the open road.
Take a fascinating look into this darker side of the U.S. economy in the wake of the Great Recession in the powerfully personal road trip, Nomadland ... Linda May’s plan was to work, save and buy land in an area remote enough for solitude but accessible to family and friends. Bruder follows in her own van ('Halen'), writing with a fine eye for details and a nonjudgmental pen, as May works hard to create her new way of life — or, rather, to recreate the unflappable pioneer spirit that got this country going in the first place.
The often desperate nomads build communities wherever they land, offering tips for overcoming common troubles, sharing food, repairing vehicles, counseling each other through bouts of depression, and establishing a grapevine about potential employers. Though very little about Bruder’s excellent journalistic account offers hope for the future, an ersatz hope radiates from within Nomadland: that hard work and persistence will lead to more stable situations. Engaging, highly relevant immersion journalism.
Tracing individuals throughout their journeys from coast to coast, Bruder conveys the phenomenon’s human element, making this sociological study intimate, personal, and entertaining, even as the author critiques the economic factors behind the trend.
