Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country

by Alissa Quart (Editor), David Wallis (Editor)

Overview

A collection of compelling, hard-hitting first-person essays, poems, and photos that expose what our punitive social systems do to so many Americans.

Going for Broke, edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP, gives voice to a range of gifted writers for whom "economic precarity" is more than just another assignment. All illustrate what the late Barbara Ehrenreich, who conceived of EHRP, once described as "the real face of journalism today: not million dollar-a-year anchorpersons, but low-wage workers and downwardly spiraling professionals."

One essayist and grocery store worker describes what it is like to be an “essential worker” during the pandemic; another reporter and military veteran details his experience with homelessness and what would have actually helped him at the time. These dozens of fierce and sometimes darkly funny pieces reflect the larger systems that have made writers' bodily experiences, family and home lives, and work far harder than they ought to be.

Featuring introductions by luminaries including Michelle Tea, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Astra Taylor, Going for Broke is revelatory. It shows us the costs of income inequality to our bodies and our minds—and demonstrates real ways to change our conditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642599657
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	630,570
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alissa Quart is the author of five acclaimed books of nonfiction including Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, Squeezed, Republic of Outsiders, Hothouse Kids, and Branded. She is the Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and is also the author of two books of poetry. She has written for many publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and TIME.

David Wallis has contributed to The New Yorker, The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other publications. He has edited two critically acclaimed books, Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print and Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression. He previously served as managing director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

By Alissa Quart

Section 1. THE BODY
Introduction by Camonghne Felix
“A Stay At Kings County” by Charlie Gross
“I Did My Own Abortion” by Anonymous
“Women afraid of dying while /they are trying to find their life” by Alissa Quart & Katha Pollitt
“Medicaid Has Been Good to My Body. But It Has Abandoned My Brain” by Katie Prout
“Love and War” by Karie Fugett
“My Disability Is My Superpower: If Only Employers Could See It That Way.” by Andrea Dobynes and Deborah Jian Lee
“A Trip to the Nail Salon with Missing Fingers” By Kim Kelly
“Traumatic Pregnancies Are Awful. Dobbs Will Make Them So Much Worse” by Alissa Quart
“The Twisted Business of Donating Plasma” by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
“To Help the Homeless, Offer Shelter That Allows Deep Sleep” by Lori Teresa Yearwood
“Inequity In Maternal Health Care Left Me With Undiagnosed Postpartum PTSD” by Courtney Lund O’Neil
“Anything of Value” by Lorelei Lee

2. Home
Introduction by Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor
“Homeless in a Pandemic” by Jennifer Fitzgerald
“I Was Given a House for Free But It Already Belonged to Someone Else” by Anne Elizabeth Moore
“I Grew Up Without a Fixed Address” by Bobbi Dempsey
“Evictionland” by Joseph Williams
“37,000 US Veterans Are Homeless. I Was One of Them” by Alex Miller
“Why I Choose to Live House-Free in Alaska” by Joe Ford
“I Was Wrongly Detained at the Border. It’s Part of a Larger Problem” by David Wallis
“I Watched War Erupt in the Balkans. Here’s What I See in America Today” by Elizabeth Rubin
“A Fierce Desire to Stay: Looking At West Virginia Through Its People’s Eyes” by Elizabeth Catte, Matt Eich, and Doug Van Gundy

3. Family
Introduction by Michelle Tea
“Heartbreaking Images from a Photographer Grappling with a Complex Past,” photos by Jordan Gale
“When My Father Called Me About His Unemployment” by Lisa Ventura
“I Took in a Homeless Couple. Would You?” by Annabelle Gurwitch
“My Marriage Was Broken: The Coronavirus Lockdown Saved It” By Robert Fieseler
“PS 42” by Celina Su, photo by Annie Ling
“My Sister Is a Recovering Heroin Addict” by Elizabeth Kadetsky
“In the Pandemic, Cooking Connected Me to My Ancestors” by Elizabeth Gollan
“The Underground Economy of Unpaid Care” by Julie Poole
“The Worst Part About Being Poor: Watching Your Dog Die” by Bobbi Dempsey
“Nomen Est Omen” by Mitchell S. Jackson
4. Work
Introduction by Kathi Weeks
“How the Taxi Workers Won” by Molly Crabapple
“My Pandemic Year Behind the Checkout Counter” by Ann Larson
“From Academic to Assembly Line Worker” by Gloria Diaz
“Once Upon a Time, ‘Waitress’ Was a Union Job. Could History Repeat Itself?” by Haley Hamilton
“Why I Check the “Black” Box” by Lori Teresa Yearwood
“My Life As a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor” by Joseph Williams
“What It’s Like Riding Along with a Valet Driver at a San Francisco Strip Club” photos by Rian Dundon
“You Talk Real Good” by Alison Stine
“The Secret Lives of Adjunct Professors” by Gila Berryman
“The Poetry of Labor: On Rodrigo Toscano and the Art of Work” by Alissa Quart and Rodrigo Toscano; photo by David Bacon
“Zen and the Art of Uber Driving” by John Koopman

5. Class
Introduction by Astra Taylor
“The Difference Between Being Broke and Being Poor” Words by Erynn Brook, illustrations by Emily Flake
“That Sinking Feeling” by Ray Suarez
“Off Our Butts” by June Thunderstorm
“Never-ending Sentences,” by Philip Metres
“The Dignity of the Thrift Store” by Elizabeth Gollan
“Class Dismissed” by Alison Stine
“For Years, I’ve Tried to Work My Way Back into the Middle Class” by Lori Teresa Yearwood
“What Does it Mean to Be ‘Bad with Money?’” by Joshua Hunt

Editorial Reviews

10/09/2023

Economic injustice takes center stage in this mixed bag gathered by Quart, executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (Bootstrapped), and managing director Wallis (Killed). The essays, poems, and photographs are “a testament to American life during the lingering pandemic,” Quart writes in her introduction, “with its consequent exacerbated inequality.” “I Did My Own Abortion Because Texas Used COVID-19 as an Excuse to Shut Down Abortion Clinics” is a striking anonymous account of the precarity of reproductive rights, while “I Grew Up Without a Fixed Address” by Bobbi Dempsey is a moving look at what it’s like to apply for a grant having lived in “an estimated seventy places before I graduated high school” due to poverty. Some of the pieces feel a bit out of place: Elizabeth Gollen’s “In the Pandemic, Cooking Connected Me to My Ancestors,” which lacks the gravity of other essays, bemoans postpandemic changes at the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, while Joe Ford’s “Why I Choose to Live House-Free in Alaska” seems to poke fun at the same homelessness the rest of the collection takes seriously. (“I don’t want a flock of freakin’ hobos descending on the area like an invasive species,” he writes, explaining why he won’t reveal the exact location of his campsite.) Though the quality varies, there’s plenty of powerful vulnerability in these personal accounts. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"The subjects' voices jump from the page with pain and hope.  More than that, they’re a provocation to the reader to consider the fine line between the lives of the “middle precariat” and their own, if there is one. Whether it’s the ironies of telling working people not to smoke when the system does precious little to secure basic health care, an underpaid adjunct instructor handing her EBT card to her student clerking at the local grocery store, or a person with hearing impairments whose doctor thinks that hiding her condition as a “surprise” for a medical student is a hilarious joke, the editors position the voices of the disadvantaged as compelling, worth listening to, and valuable." —Booklist, Starred Review

"These emotionally charged and heart-wrenching narratives are both wide-ranging and powerfully rendered.... A penetrating collection that is certain to challenge the readers’ views of those living in poverty." —Kirkus

"Going for Broke is a gut punch, a collective portrait of precarity, a book of testimony and astonishing courage. This is a book with a pulse. It’s angry, as it must be, and often beautiful, and always brilliant with the illumination of injustice. These essays and memoirs and poems and pictures—this documentary art—is vital, intimate, and necessary. Please, read this heartbreaking, heart-mending volume.”
—Jeff Sharlet, New York Times-bestselling author of The Undertow and The Family

“Going for Broke is an illuminating compendium of essays, poetry, photos and illustrations about the impact of inequality, bias, and poverty on the lives and careers of professional mediamakers. These deeply personal accounts deliver keen critiques of fractured and dehumanizing systems, but they also offer unexpected solutions and reveal the depth of human resilience. Going for Broke is ultimately a powerful example of why diversity in media matters—that journalism informed by a variety of lived experiences leads us to a more profound understanding of our disjointed, dynamic world.”
—Bernice Yeung, author of In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers

“This moving anthology breaks down the barriers between experience and interpretation. Its contributors explore the underside of American society from many angles. But they do more than document hardship—they show how ordinary people who’ve been exploited and left behind forge understanding and solidarity out of the experience.”
—Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America

“What the informative, insightful, nuanced, and gut-wrenching stories in Going for Broke show, over and over, is that the only difference between the haves and the have-nots is opportunity…. An eloquent plea…. As both EHRP and Going for Broke argue, policy and reporting will only be effective when informed by – if not actually driven by – the people that know what they’re talking about.” 

—PopMatters

From the Publisher

2023-06-21
An anthology presented by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project that explores social inequality and economic injustice in the U.S.

The EHRP is “a nonprofit organization that keeps journalists, essayists, and photographers in the national conversation on economic injustice.” Edited by executive director Quart and managing director Wallis, this collection of essays, poems, and photographs, originally published in leading magazines and journals, highlights the valuable insights gained by these journalists in confronting their own hardships. By publishing these works, the EHRP seeks to mobilize people “to fight for economic justice.” The book is divided into five sections: The Body, Home, Family, Work, and Class. These emotionally charged and heart-wrenching narratives are both wide-ranging and powerfully rendered. Journalists from a variety of backgrounds share their experiences, including a woman who was forced to perform her own abortion following the shutdown of clinics in Texas and a 40-something man who donated plasma in order to pay the rent. One woman was homeless for two years, and she demonstrates the anxiety of feeling constantly on alert as well as the cyclical effects sleep deprivation has on homeless individuals. Another journalist shares how her assumptions about people without houses changed following her experience taking in a couple in Los Angeles. Other topics include inequalities in maternal health care for the uninsured and underinsured; the dangers low-wage workers are often expected to endure, which were particularly evident during the Covid-19 pandemic; struggles with racial identity; and the power of shared community. In addition to the editors, other contributors include Camonghne Felix, Kim Kelly, Elizabeth Rubin, Michelle Tea, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Astra Taylor. “The writers represented here,” writes Quart, “may have lost their jobs, their homes, or even the narrative thread of their lives, but in confronting those hardships they have gained valuable insights into problems facing millions in this country.”

A penetrating collection that is certain to challenge the readers’ views of those living in poverty.

Kirkus Reviews