Nomadland

[Andi]

This book by Jessica Bruder really hit home for me, and I'm betting this forum will love it as much as I did. Let me quote from the back cover:

"From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads."

"Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy--one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope."

Awesome book, written by an awesome writer.

[BarbaraRose]

There are two groups of RVers. Ones like those highlighted in that book who are down and out, and ones who, like the women on here and elsewhere, choose to travel this way for the fun, freedom and adventure it brings.
It would be interesting to read that book to see how the first group end up on that journey.

[Bethers]

I've worked Amazon... But authors that write about it that way leave me cold and don't get a handle on the majority of the Amazon Camperforce. Most workampers are NOT what that describes... Just what the media wants to portray.

[JudyJB]

The review in quotations from the back of this book is full of "loaded" phrases: transient older adults, casualties of the Great Recession, revelatory tale, dark underbelly, precarious future, and survive!! And to say these people have "not given up hope" is ridiculous!

First, very few full-time RVers work for Amazon, compared to the number traveling. Second, many people work camp or volunteer in order to not dive into savings--not that they are doing it to "survive." (If this were true, they would not be driving such expensive rigs!) Others work after retirement for comradeship and to keep busy. I am in this latter category and cannot imagine sitting around all day.

There have been several articles published with similar themes by similarly ignorant writers. None of them that I have read have gotten the entire picture of why people become "nomads" in their senior years. There are as many reasons as there are people full-timing, and I have met only a very small handful who are struggling to survive. The vast majority are enjoying life on the road, happy to have reduced excess belongings from their lives, having fun meeting new people and seeing new places, and are not destitute.

In fact, this is really not a cheap lifestyle. You can live much more cheaply in an apartment in most places than in an RV, especially considering the repairs we all have.

From the few Amazon workers I have known I have received both positive and negative feedback on that work, but the truth is that it is a choice they made and there are other lifestyle choices any of them could make so I don’t think it is fair for authors to portray them so dismally. There are certainly cheaper and easier ways to live. I hope that since this “hits home” with you that you oh do not feel trapped in this lifestyle.

[havingfunnow]

I found the book interesting, though there was nothing in it that I hadn't already known. Some will love it and some will hate it, just as some will find it realistic and others will not. One of the failures of the middle class is their willful blindness to the difficulties that other people face. This book focuses on people facing those difficulties who choose living on the road.

[Bethers]

Louise, I totally understand those having difficulties. But as a workamper who work these positions and was even interviewed and ignored because by their own words I didn't fall into what they were looking to portray... I totally dislike the agenda that these books and articles have that are taking a very small percentage. Many more of the people living on the fringe are in cities, living in rigs that, in many cases aren't movable and I feel for them, truly I do. Having worked 3 years for Amazon more of the people who fall into what this and other similar books/sticks portray are NOT part of Camperforce or workampers but hired through the agencies as seasonal employees. Every year a new article or book gets written about us poor seniors who have to take these terrible low paying jobs to afford to survive. Never has one of these looked at the entire picture.

So, I will hate it because it's not a true portrayal. It's coming in looking for what you want to see and, btw, one of the couple's I've seen quoted several times in these are traveling in a Provost... Another family that I know and like chose to travel to give their children a different life... And while they lived on a shoe string today they are managing an rv park to save for another year of traveling. They were written about and pitied in a story a few years ago.

I definitely recognize difficulties others face. However I also want the press to portray things as they are... Not with the agenda they want. That should be a novel/fiction. If that was a part of the story, truthfully told, it could be news/non-fiction.

Sorry, but this really disturbs me.

[Cudedog]

. . .One of the failures of the middle class is their willful blindness to the difficulties that other people face.

Sorry to disagree. All of the "middle class" people I know are struggling...just to stay in the middle class. For example, both parents in a two parent, "middle class" family both hold full-time jobs, and still are barely making it.

They are compassionate people who do see the "big picture" but are so stressed out and busy trying to keep themselves from sliding down the slippery slope towards insolvency, they can do little to help those who are in worse circumstances than they are themselves.

Personal observation, and my two cents worth.

Anne

[havingfunnow]

I have had three really enlightening periods in my life in learning about poverty. The first was when I lived in Hong Kong, where the truly poor were everywhere, the lowest and most helpless members of a fading colonial system. The second was when I became disabled and lived in subsidized housing for people over age 55 for a few years, where I met elderly who literally had to worry about having food on the table at the end of the month. (Yes, some of them had been middle class; it only takes one illness that exhausts both savings and insurance benefits to land among the poor.) All of them had been employed and self-supporting for decades. The third is now, when I live in a poor neighborhood and watch hard-working people with full-time jobs worry about being able to feed their children.

So -- I know a lot about poverty from a variety of perspectives. It's there, it's real, and unfortunately it is to a great degree reinforced by the same system that makes some people very rich. The book is trying to talk about one result of that system, so of course it doesn't cover everyone's experience -- and it never said it did. That would be a different book for someone else to write.

[retiredhappy]

I agree with Beth. I find the portrayal in this book not to be the real truth but the author's own idea of what is. I fulltimed in my RV for three years. I workkamped at various parks so I could get a free site and sometimes a little money so I could stay in a particular area for three or four months and really get to know the area. Some of the workkampers I met were living in rigs that cost more than a lot of homes. Its a "chosen" lifestyle not just because we're too poor and down=and-out to be able to afford to live in a sticks and bricks. It irritates me when someone who has NOT actually lived the life chooses to write about it. Its a freedom that most people won't ever get to live. Shame on the author. Maybe if they'd actually live the life for a while they would discover why so may of us loved it.

[Bethers]

But most of the rver's and workampers... The great majority, don't fit that category. We didn't have to get rv's and work these jobs. We CHOSE to. These companies aren't taking advantage of us. It was wonderful for me to be able to spend 2 months working Amazon (my first season) with my site including electric and wifi covered. That two months allowed me to spend the next few months traveling and visiting around Florida all on what I made at Amazon.

I'm NOT wealthy by a long shot. I'm trying to keep my expenses this winter to as close to $1k per month as possible and still enjoy my life. I could more Easily live in one place on this amount... And be miserable. Instead my view changes constantly. I love where I can go, what I can do. So I don't get depressed or feel bad.

By my numbers above I could, I guess, fall into her category, although I don't. And I'm not the normal rver ... Or workamper... Who lives with much more.

Are there rver's living hand to mouth, yes. For the most part it is not the people she claims to be writing about. And she is a "journalist" deciding to write what she thinks the outcome is... Not what the truth is. She went out and ignored most of those on the road to find ones that fit her criteria.

[JudyJB]

I did some research on this author. She has somehow has become an "expert" and has made the round of talk shows both on TV and radio, so she is making a lot of money writing about this subject. And certainly, we all know that the more sensational a book is, the more it sells and the more money the author makes.

I don't know if she just did sloppy research and unknowingly wrote misleading stuff or if she intended to do this. The point is that she is simplifying some very complex reasons why people choose to work past retirement and travel. (I am working half-time at age 75, for example.) Interviewing a few people and selectively writing about the experiences of some of them does not make her an expert, in my opinion, however.

Have you been reading all the ridiculous stuff that people have been writing about the British Royal Family lately? There were rumors of feuds between the younger royals, and how the queen has been angry or said this or that, and how the Duchess of Sussex has insulted everyone and forbid Prince Harry to participate in animal hunts, etc. Except, over the holiday, it was clear that none of this was true--everyone is getting along, Harry went on the hunt, the queen looked clearly happy, etc, So now they had to find other "rumors" to invent and write about!!

If it makes money, someone will write about it.

[Andi]

I'll make this last reply, then let this go.

This author is speaking to a certain demographic of Rver--not all RVers. She recognizes that that would be impossible. She does not present herself as the expert in all things RV. Her focus is mainly women who have had pretty tough lives who are struggling to survive, and the best way--possibly the only way--they've found to survive is to take to the road.

Yes, RVing can be expensive but it doesn't have to be. There are a lot more options with the RVing lifestyle than you would ever have owning a home or trying to pay rent on a fixed income where the rent goes up $50 plus every year. These women have managed to take back at least a measure of control over their lives through RVing and seem to have found a measure of peace as a result, and I salute them for that.

I resonate with this book and these women because in today's world, there's no guarantee that I won't end up in the same situation tomorrow. These women gave me hope.

I'm not sure how I came away with such a different take on this book, but I sure do like my take better...