AMERICAN PRECARIAT

A collection of essays and conversations about living in America without a safety net.

There is a growing class, especially in the U.S., not characterized by politics, race, or religion, but by economic uncertainty and lack of stability. Defined by the British economist Guy Standing as “the precariat,” this class cuts across broad swaths of the population: immigrants, prisoners, and gig workers, but also college graduates, homeowners, and artists. “We build community,” writes Caligiuri, “because we can’t expect, demand, or control the machinations of the captivity business.” Featuring contributions from Kiese Laymon, Valeria Luiselli, Steve Almond, Lacy M. Johnson, and other prominent writers, this book, edited by a collective of incarcerated writers in Minnesota, demonstrates what it means to live a life dominated by uncertainty. Among the subjects are a teacher struggling to free herself from a $386,000 debt from loans her gambling-addicted mother took out in her name without her knowledge; people living at a rest stop in Oregon; a gig worker delivering food to the Manhattan wealthy during the worst days of the Covid-19 pandemic; and a group of U.S. Forest Service scientists working to save trees in Oregon and California as climate change decimates forests and other natural habitats. Almost all of the essays are enlightening, speaking to the resilience with which these people address their despair. Trees share this determination, notes Lauren Markham. “The living will do whatever they need to survive,” she writes. “I had seen one desiccated former tree whose branches were covered in hundreds of cones….Sensing it will die, the tree bursts forth into cones in a frantic final act of hope: not so much for itself, but for its species.” A thoughtful conversation among the editors caps each moving essay, and the book features an introduction by Eula Biss.

Important stories of the unseen and unspoken that illuminate a growing class in America.