Not Working: Losing a Job in Today's Great Recession

by D.W. Gibson

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 Working holds 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 The Pulse of the Great Recession,  please visit ffh.films.com/title/55494.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Economics

470 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2012

About the author

DW Gibson is the author of Not Working and The Edge Becomes the Center: An Oral History of Gentrification in the Twenty-First Century. He has written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, The Daily Beast, BOMB, and Tin House, and worked on documentaries for MSNBC and A&E®. The executive director of the international writers residency Writers Omi at Ledig House, he lives in New York City with his wife and their daughter.

Reviews

[Lorianne DiSabato · Rating 5 out of 5]

The premise behind this book is simple: travel across America, talk to unemployed folks from all walks of life, and let them describe in their own words the day they lost their jobs. What emerges from these stories is both heartbreaking and oddly reassuring, a reminder to all who have been downsized that "you are not alone." Many themes emerge from these stories: in a struggling economy, seniority and job loyalty matter little, age discrimination exists, and we no longer live in a world where you can expect to work for (and retire from) a single company for your entire professional career. (Several of the people Gibson interviews had been laid off not just one but several times.). One of the most remarkable aspects of Gibson's book is the surprising lack of self-pity. Although his interview subjects are brutally honest in describing the emotions that unemployment evokes, none of them linger on the question of "Why me?" Instead, a strong sense of human dignity emerges as individuals strive to make sense of disappointment, and a surprising number of those interviewed describe the compassion they felt for the HR personnel and middle managers who delivered the bad news. The economy might be struggling, but human decency lives on.

[Rachel Bayles · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a labour of love to do the legwork required for all these interviews. Good reading for anyone still under the delusion that people out of work "just aren't trying hard enough" to find a job. This book is pretty hard to get though, because it supports the idea that there really are many, many people in this country preying on the weak. Not a pretty picture of America.

[Karah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book immensely!!! Everyone spoke plainly. There were recurring themes: resilience, tenacity, perseverance, faith, and hope. No one included had given up. Some had gained a deeper realism about their prospects. It relieves me that Gibson published people who chose to keep the faith.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following in the spirit of Studs Terkel's "Working", this book attempts to uncover the fallout of the Great Recession through personal interviews with people around the country who have in the past several years lost their jobs. Many of the interviewees are incredibly honest, sharing the despair, depression, and challenges they faced in coping with loss and starting new foundations. Gibson sought to offer us a cross-section of America by profiling people from a range of professions: academics to laborers to executive assistants and draftsmen, but the formula of simply letting interviewees speak their minds/hearts without direction became tired by page 300. Greater editorial discretion would've benefited the book given the redundancy of coping mechanisms/narratives/responses issued by people.

There's no silver lining in this book - people took significant pay cuts, exhausted unemployment benefits, experienced separations, and self-medicated in a variety of ways - and I don't believe there needs to be one. This is a naked chronicle of unemployment and shouldn't have a feel-good takeaway unless the unemployed are finding greater happiness in something else (e.g., "lost my job, now pursuing my love of X which I had earlier ignored..."). However, despite Gibson's incredible access to people with immediate experience of unemployment, I feel he neglected the opportunity to pull together a more coherent story of the effects of job loss. I'm not looking for an RCT to test whether unemployment benefits smooth consumption, but rather answer some broader questions: what had interviewees done to prepare themselves for the possibility of job loss? How has unemployment changed their view of formal banking? Are changes in living arrangements (moving in with parents) permanent? How has unemployment shaped their friendships and their ability to trust/rely on loved ones? Developing some stylized facts about these sub-issues would've been a welcomed contribution beyond the straight narration of circumstances and responses.

In all, a recommended read you could put down after 250 pages and possibly come away with a sharper understanding of the human toll of recessions, especially if you and your loved ones were relatively unaffected.

[Alicia Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very depressing read. Each chapter has a brief description of the interviewee, followed by the interviewee's monologue about job loss. I'd recommend it to anyone who's working, including those just starting out.

It would have gotten four stars if not for the grammatical errors. It seemed like the authors recorded people, then used a software program to type out what each person said, correcting only glaring mistakes in the written text. This time, I can't blame the errors on typical digital-crap-publishing; I read a paper copy.

[Jessica Keltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a lot of interesting stories in this book, but ultimately, for me, the 100% in their own words format took away from its effectiveness. There were a couple of times people said things I knew not to be true -- things about government policy and so forth -- and they were just repeated verbatim. Fact checking was outside the scope of the project, I understand, but that makes these accounts no more reliable than what your neighbor would tell you in a bar.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads super quickly, really almost like an absorbing newspaper article. Basically a great read thus far. My heart goes out to everyone in the book. They are courageous to speak about what seems to be on everyone's minds these days concerning work, self worth, providing, and in these cases, not working. Bravo, sir and company who traveled and documented these important stories.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for anybody who has ever lost their job as well as being very insightful into how the US economy is impacting the lives of everyday, unemployed Americans. Gibson travels across the country interviewing all levels of the formerly employed asking how, when and and what they are currently doing to get by. A must read to be sure!

[Pam Sexton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can barely put this book down. The stories that are shared from across the country cover blue and white collar workers, men/women, young/old, diverse locales and workplaces. I'm loving it ... because I am living it.

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gibson provides an excellent, nuanced, compassionate, and complete portrait of people's experiences being laid off. I gained a much more thorough understanding of what's going on in the US based on this collection of stories.

[Karalea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this book as research for a grad school paper. Found myself reading it instead of using it for research. The people in this book are your neighbors, your family, friends, possibly you. The stories are open and truthful. Unemployment knows no demographic. This book serves as a reminder to that.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much longer than it needs to be, and riddled with typos and spelling errors. But it's a good, if heartbreaking, look at today's economy and the jobs that aren't coming back. Very disheartening if you, like me, are looking for a job.

[Julia]

Loved this book. I'm going thru similar stuff too and it's comforting to read about the trials and tribulations of others.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better books about the changing American work scape with fascinating interviews with people of wide ranging backgrounds and work histories as they struggle to reinvent themselves.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book surprisingly fascinating.