Not Working
People Talk About Losing a Job and Finding Their Way in Today's Changing Economy
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Poignant true stories of resilience, determination, and the search for fulfillment
Inspired by Studs Terkel's Working and by James Agee and Walker Evans' Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, DW Gibson sets off on a journey across the United States to interview Americans who have lost their jobs. Here is the mortgage broker who arrived at work to find the door to his office building padlocked, the human resources executive who laid off a couple hundred people before being laid off herself, the husband who was laid off two weeks after his wife learned she was pregnant, the wife who was forced to lay off her husband.
In telling the stories of people who could be our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, Not Workingholds up a mirror to our times, showing us the individuals behind the unemployment statistics—their fears and hopes—and offering a map for navigating our changing economy. With an extraordinary mix of pathos, anger, solidarity, and humor, it brings clarity—and humanity—to the national conversation.
For information about the companion documentary film, Not Working: The Pulse of the Great Recession, please visit ffh.films.com/title/55494.
DW Gibson
DW Gibson is most recently the author of 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall. His previous books include the award-winning The Edge Becomes the Center: An Oral History of Gentrification in the Twenty-First Century and Not Working: People Talk About Losing a Job and Finding Their Way in Today’s Changing Economy. He shared a National Magazine Award for his work on “This is the Story of One Block in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn” for New York magazine. His work has also appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Gibson’s radio work includes cohosting the podcast There Goes the Neighborhood, guest hosting various news programs for WNYC, and reading original essays for Live From Here, as well as All Things Considered. Gibson serves as director of Art Omi: Writers in Ghent, New York, and he cofounded Sangam House, a writers’ residency in India.
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