“Nomadland” is a beautifully written piece of journalism from a talented writer, Jessica Bruder, whose work focuses on subculture and the mysterious unlit corridors of economy. Here she follows the paths of older workers who have thrown off the shackles of modern living, giving up food, household expenditures, payment of debt, accumulation of personal stuff for the freedom of homelessness, or, as they prefer it to be called, houselessness. In most cases, the decision was forced on them, not something they willingly chose.
Try to think back and remember the last time you were forced to spend the night in a drafty vehicle. The cold seemed to penetrate every attempt to cover up, the brightness of outside lights bored through every effort to keep eyes tightly closed, and the sounds of car doors opening and closing, tires scrunching on gravel, and people talking and laughing as they wandered the perimeter of your temporary bedroom, doing who knows what, but the noise keeping your senses sharply attuned and always suspicious.
There are a few times like that that never leave my memory and yet, as Bruder tells us, there are people who choose that way of existence, a growing band of nomads, who stealth sleep
every night under circumstances inundated with that type of crappy atmosphere. In her book she follows them around, listening to their stories, reporting on their existence, and writing about their adventures. There are thousands of beat-up vans and RVs, carrying multitudes of disadvantaged individuals around the country as they search desperately for some kind of employment that will supply the funds for fuel that keeps them going. From Amazon warehouses, to crop fields, to orchards, to roadwork, to park attendants, they are looking for anything to keep them rolling. Their stories are mesmerizing and undeniably heartbreaking.
Bruder’s accounts are touching, yet I find little with which to empathize. These are for the most part decisions that were forced on the characters, usually caused by poor judgement in the first place. I get to judge that by reading the book, a decision that subjects me to some cringing as I witness their struggles. Be that as it may, the reporter does a fine job at outlining the conditions that existed, the soul-searching that took place, and finally the work it took to make the houseless plan work. Discomfort runs rampant, although remorse seems in small supply. The story is simply too well put together to not get immersed in it, or even mesmerized.
Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES
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Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
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Reviews with images
Roadkill
The colorful and upbeat real-life characters in “Nomadland” are living their senior-citizen years in RV’s, vans and cars and working low-paying jobs due to financial trouble, addictions, mental health challenges, and family dysfunction. If there are any “vanily” who choose this itinerant and stressful lifestyle, we don’t read about them in these pages.But just because the people profiled in Jessica Bruder’s book are pitching a necessary evil as a choice may be a coping strategy for these van dwellers; for the author to adopt that point of view in a work of nonfiction isn’t professional journalism – it’s slumming (she has a home to go back to, after all). Bruder doesn’t ask the hard questions, instead she spins their heartbreaking – and backbreaking stories – into a modern-day version of the “Grapes of Wrath,” minus the family and a future.It’s watered-down storytelling on a lot of levels including fact checking. She writes that one nomad used “drilled-out pennies – they were cheaper than [flat] washers.” Flat washers can be bought for .10¢ at any hardware store. Drilling pennies is not easy and requires equipment like a drill, bits, clamps, and, of course, the pennies. The whole scene defies reality and violates the Rule of Survival Thermodynamics which is that you never put more energy into a survival activity than is taken out – a code these nomads live by.Bruder loses her objectivity, but not her sympathy The result is a mushy mix of romanticism and pity, and her subjects come across as happy failures instead of scrappy survivors.
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