Friday, January 5, 2024

Nomadland

 


Book: Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Jessica Bruder

Edition: epub on Libby from Sacramento Public Library

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN:  9780393356311

Start Date: December 24, 2023

Read Date: January 5, 2024

288 pages

Genre:  Biography, Book Group, Economy

Language Warning:  Low

Rated Overall: 3½   out of 5



Synopsis:

The author takes us through the lives of several people, principally Linda May. They are vandwellers who travel from one seasonal job to the next. They take a break each year to attended something called the Rubber Tramp Rendezous. Here she talks about the camaraderie they find with people in similar situations.



Cast of Characters:
  • Jessica Bruder-author and a person who has traveled with many of the characters
  • Linda May-Chief person who Bruder talks about. Houseless with a dream
  • Silvianne Delmars-author of a blog which details her wanderings
  • Don Wheeler-pseudonym. Was in legal battle with Amazon over working conditions
  • Bob Wells-RV/Van living guru. Has a book and web site
  • Lois LaVonne-blog called The Complete Flake.
  • Charlene Swankie-another fried of Linda May
  • Gary-companion to Linda May


Places-See my Google Earth file:

  • Hanna Flats - Campground Host in San Bernardino
  • Mission Viejo - San Diego where daughter lived.
  • Empire, NV - Town where gypsum was mined and processed.
  • Fernley, NV - Amazon warehouse
  • Fallon, NV - a location where many of the Fernley campers stayed.
  • Quartzsite, AZ - Site of the annual Rubber Tramp Rendezous
  • Sherwin Creek Campground - another place May was host at
  • Ehrenberg - where Bob Wells went to after RTR. By the Colorado River
  •  Douglas, AZ - Where May’s property was
  •  Campbellsville, KY - Amazon warehouse where May worked.
     



Expectations:
  • Recommendation: Val in Book Group
  • When: November 20, 2023
  • Date Became Aware of Book: 2019
  • Why do I want to read this book: Book group selection. Popular book a few years ago.
  • What do I think I will get out of it? Maybe learn to be a bit less planned and less rooted

Thoughts:

Going into reading Nomadlands I thought it would be about a pack of people in RV’s who wandered around the desert, sometimes the mountains, occasionally finding work, but mostly having a good time. That is not the object of this book. It is about people who were squeezed out of their homes for various reasons. They live in their vans and trailers going from one work place to the next. The labor is body-breaking.


Note and this is a spoiler: Linda May ends up trying to build her Earthship house on her property in Douglas, AZ. The first thing she does is put up a greenhouse so she can grow her own food. While she is away, the PVC pip melts in the Arizona sun. But because she is in the movie Nomadland, she earns enough money to buy a place in Taos, NM and build her home there. Esquire Magazine, April 20, 2021



Foreword

AS I WRITE THIS, they are scattered across the country— In Drayton, North Dakota, a former San Francisco cabdriver, sixty-seven, labors at the annual sugar beet harvest. This opening line gives me the feeling of Woody Gutherie’s song Deportee.


The people who she is following are mostly formerly economically middle class people. Some lower middle, some higher. But all are driving away from the impossible choices that face what used to be the middle class. And that is the choice between food or medical work, energy bill or mortgage, …


The choice they make is to cut their ties to the land and get rid of their house. Some call them “homeless.” The new nomads reject that label. They seem to like the title of “Houseless”.


The last free place in America is a parking spot.



Part 1

1 The Squeeze Inn

Chapter starts with Linda May towing her trailer, The Squeeze Inn, to a new campsite where she will be a campground host. The author is in front of her. Description of a campground host-not as glamorous as it sounds.


With a low minimum wage, it becomes almost impossible to rent a decent house let alone buy one. So many people … moved into vans, RVs, and trailers, traveled from place to place following good weather, and kept their gas tanks full by working seasonal jobs. Seasonal jobs can be campground host, working for Amazon, and processing food.


Even with the hardships, some like May felt the urge to wander, to be free of the economic pressures which surrounded her. She had been living with her daughter, in cramped spaces. The trailer had set her free.


Seasonal work at Amazon had injured her-no insurance on seasonal jobs.


On the trip up to her campsite in San Bernardino mountains, she lost both of her propane tanks-was able to retrieve one. Her thinking was That’s a $20 propane tank, and I am a priceless person. Better to lose the tank than herself.


A friend was going to co-host with her, Silvianne Delmars. The vendor running the Forest Service Campgrounds is California Land Management-I also have a friend who is a campground host as well with them. Describes some of the stories and tasks they have as hosts.


In a complaint about unpaid hours and work conditions, Hume, Princess and Stony Creek Campgrounds, as well as Ten-Mile and Landslide, Campgrounds were talked about. This is in my backyard.


Bruder got to know May better. Bruder asks the question, How does a hardworking sixty-four-year-old woman end up without a house or a permanent place to stay, relying on unpredictable low-wage work to survive? That question and how to survive in that situation is the themes of the book, not so much the romance of being a senior nomad.



2 The End

More background on May. She had reached the end where she could not move in with family and the funds were not enough to support her. With all of her experience, she was hardly making ends meet. She wonders, How can anybody afford to grow old?


She has a heart for those who are out on their luck. So w\she found ways to help them.


She found something which would provide a long-term house: Earthship. Earthship: a passive-solar home built using discarded materials such as cans and bottles, with dirt-filled tires for its load-bearing walls. Invented by radical New Mexico architect Michael Reynolds. To make this dream come true, she needed to find some low-cost land with adequate water.



3 Surviving America

Talks about how thriving towns, such as Empire, NV can suddenly be made into ghost towns. In this case it was the victim of the ripple effect from the 2008 housing bust. People lost money. Could not buy houses. Building materials were no longer in demand. Mine which made gypsum closed. Empire was a company town and it folded.


On the other hand, Amazon was booming and hiring. The difference was that construction paid well; Amazon was barely above minimum wage. Those who were in the nomad groups were contacted by an Amazon entity called CamperForce. Long hours, walking up to 15 miles a day on concrete floors, bending and reaching.


Amazon is not the only seasonal work: concession stands at Winter League, guards at oil installations, Christmas trees, fireworks, …


No real numbers on how many people have this type of life. Uptick after the 2008 economy blow up.


Goes through several of the stories about how these people ended up being workampers instead of tooling around enjoying their retirement years. Some lost houses in 2008, some were divorced, others made bad investments, and still others had been injured and could not work their normal jobs.


Bruder reviews that the concept of retirement is relatively new. She then has several references to retirement going back to the 1700’s and Thomas Paine. This is a relatively short section.



4 Escape Plan

Talks about Bob Wells and his influence on the house-to-RV movement. His goal is to eliminate the single biggest expense of most households. The 2008 meltdown caused people to seek after his advice on how to scale down their shelter needs.


The general sentiment is that They’d upheld their end of the social contract, yet the system had let them down. I think this is what gave rise to the disenchantment of America. Trump has used this sentiment to propel himself.


I suppose every book has some sort of factual flaw in it. It makes you wonder about the authenticity of the rest of the book, even if the flaw is minor. Bruder talks about living in a Honda Prius. It is a Toyota Prius. Wonder where the editor was?


The difference between the Dust Bowl migrants and the Vandewllers is that the Dust Bowl folks had a vision of when things returned to normal. The Vandwellers had given up on this being normal and were establishing a new normal.


The online community of Vandwellers goes back to November 2000 with a single post. Others posted on Yahoo and the community grew. One of these is a Facebook group called “VanDwellers: Live in Your Van.” Reddit has a group of 26,000 members. And then there are various web pages which help you, such as identifying which WalMarts will let you stay in their parking lot. In 2011 Bob Wells organized the first in-person get together called Rubber Tramp Rendezous (RTR). This was held in Quartzsite.


Bob made extreme frugality sound like a path to freedom : liberation instead of deprivation. This sound like the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.



May finds an RV cheap, which needs fixing up. She is now in business. She went to work for Amazon.



Part 2

5 Amazon Town

First campground host for Linda May: Junction Campground, east of Yosemite. Enjoyed the job. Lasted that summer until the Rim Fire closed Yosemite. Next job was in Fernley, NV at Amazon. Brochures made it seem both strenuous and exciting. Walking and stress of fast paced work with long hours. Before engaging in full-time Amazon work, Amazon had a series of half day work-hardening sessions.


Experiences of May with fellow campers. Also the various actions against Amazon-static charges, back injuries, …


Saturday Night Live:Chris Farley plays a vandweller named Matt Foley


May had some initial health issues which caused her to pass out. This put an end to the first season with Amazon. She would be back.



6 The Gathering Place

Talks about the Rubber Tramp Rendezous at Quartzsite. Gives background on Quartzsite. Hard times had hit the town. Different environment. Interesting comment was made that before air conditioning, people would flock to the desert. Now, if it hits 100, people leave. RTR is a time to reconnect with friends who are similar.



7 The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous

Follows May on her way to RTR. Talks about the atmosphere of the RTR-generous and willing to help others. Seminars on how to be a vandweller. After RTR or maybe for some of the days, the Quartzsite Sports, Vacation and RV Show happened. This was more commercial in nature, but the vandwellers would also pick up information and stuff from there as well. Seasonal employers were there as well.


And then things started to disperse after two weeks. Some banded together and went to certain spots others just left for their own destinations.


Blog: The Complete Flake



8 Halen

Halen is Bruder’s camping set up-think of the whimsical name for a van Halen.


Much of what I found made workamping sound like a sunny lifestyle, or even a quirky hobby, rather than a survival strategy in an era when Americans were getting priced out of traditional housing and struggling to make a living wage. Summation of her book.


Bruder cites a December 11, 2011 article called Amazon's Seasonal 'Workampers' Fill Holiday Orders. She suggests this is a fluff piece as there is no downside mentioned. There is another NPR article after this book is written which talks about the stress of working for Amazon. December 22, 2018: Working The Holidays As An Amazon Worker.


Working for Amazon is stressful and tiring, hard on the body. But most of the worker’s attitude is that they are not whiners and they want to do the job. Positive thinking, after all, is an all-American coping mechanism, practically a national pastime. Bruder’s conclusion is that the nomads I’d been interviewing for months were neither powerless victims nor carefree adventurers.


Bruder was not fully integrated into the vandweller’s life since she did not have a van/RV. So she got Halen. This enabled her to be where the RV’ers were. Talked about getting it ready for extended stays. She talks about the preparations. But then also once on the road, she found that living the life is different than hearing about it. You need to deal with it yourself.


In America, if you don’t have an address, you’re not a real person. This realization came when her doctor could not give a physical address for her.


Described her beginning stay with Swankie. Then they went to Burder’s second RTR. This time in a van, not a tent.


Bruder noticed something: So why was the crowd so white? Some of it is that camping itself attracts more whites than those of color. Also if you are in almost any setting, a person of color tends to stick out. Vandwellers do not like attention. Think about the incidents of unarmed blacks being shot by the police.


When Bruder returned to her home. She felt like The walls are close, the windows are covered, almost everything you need is within arm’s reach. It’s womblike.



9 Some Unbeetable Experiences

She now had camped and done an extended stay with the vandwellers. But another facet she had not experienced was the work they did. She decided to work processing sugar beets in Minnesota and North Dakota. She worked on a processing floor-12 hour days, shoveling beets onto a conveyor line. She described the work.


And then to Amazon in Texas. Taking Tylenol was normal to cut down on the pain. Talks about her time in this Amazon facility and what it involved. Also the dangers of working there.

She stayed on the job for a week.



Part 3

10 The H Word

Wrote about what was going on with LaVonne Ellis. Being on verge of homeless instead of houseless. Payday loans, and the issue of debt. The idea of choosing one’s destiny, as it turned out, was a big deal. I heard this time and time again—no matter how narrow the options one had to pick from, choice was key.


There is a growing batch of local laws making it hard to be without a permanent residence.



11 Homecoming

May’s family is now forced to live in an old RV.


More on the RTR. Real ID driver's license presented a challenge. Now many DMV clerks had started looking up each address online. If it belonged to a business, they demanded an actual residential address.


Downside of vandwelling: if something happens to you, chances are that there are no friends or family close by. You may die and nobody would find out for a while. Where do people go when they’re too old to camp or live in a van?


May fell sick and other vandwellers took care of her. Another person broke their arm and others helped her out.


May had kept searching for a piece of land to build her Earthship. She found one near Douglas, Az. May also had a somewhat partner, Gary-not me. Bruder agreed to visit the property and livestream it. Bruder gives background on Douglas. May is satisfied with the property-she will need to visit another day as she is working at Amazon. Bruder was wondering what kind of life it would be for May? Desolate. Very few neighbors. Dry except for flash floods, occasional drug runners.


May felt that the stuff Amazon was sending out was worthy only of landfill.



Coda: The Octopus in the Coconut

Bruder catches us up with the main characters in this story to the point of RTR 2017.


Swankie wants to hike the 800-mile Arizona Trail at the age of 72.

LaVonne Ellis has published a book.

Bruder herself will not be attending RTR 2017 because she is trying to finish up her book. She notes that The story keeps unfolding into the future, but at some point you step away.


Bruder lives in New York and realizes that if she opens her eyes, there are many vandwellers stealth camping around the City.


What parts of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living?


Like before, she goes through trade-offs of those who live at the margin.


Gini coefficient


Then catching up with Linda May-she has made it to her property in Douglas and is happy. This land is ready for her now—one perfect acre, something to build on.



Evaluation:

Nomadland was not the book I was expecting. The expectation was that the book would follow a group of people who went from one park-like scene to another, exploring parts of America in an Americanized Bedouin style. Maybe with a few hardships thrown in.


Instead, this is a book about people who have very few resources. They have lost most of their assets through job loss, divorce, medical issues or recession. Many of them lost their assets through no fault of their own. These are people who ask questions like: do I go to the ER instead of my doctor? Do I pay the energy bill or eat?


These are people who realized what Bob Wells was saying: their most expensive asset was their home. Could they live some other way? The answer to this question is to become a vandweller and drift from one seasonal job to another.


Bruder follows the stories of several people who have taken this route. She shows these houseless-not homeless-people are not bums or shiftless. Rather they are working hard behind the scenes at places like Amazon, National Forest campgrounds, and food production. The author shows a certain attraction to this lifestyle.


She does talk a little bit about the hardships these people face: long hard labor in almost all of the jobs they work at. The uncertainties of where they will be able to earn enough money to travel to the next place, … What she does not talk about are things like if something goes seriously wrong, what happens to them? Things like they are no longer able to put in the back-breaking hours at an Amazon warehouse? What happens if they get cancer and cannot travel and require regular treatments?


All in all, Bruder has written an eye-opening book. Eye-opening from the standpoint of what happens to people when they do not earn enough to even rent a house? How vandwelling can be an acceptable way of living and how there is camaraderie in living alongside those who are in a similar predicament.


Read Nomadland for these eye-openers. Read it for the facts presented and how people can be frustrated with the status quo.


 
Notes from my book group:

Was this book what you expected?


One of the main questions Bruder asks is How does a hardworking sixty-four-year-old woman end up without a house or a permanent place to stay, relying on unpredictable low-wage work to survive? How do you answer this question? In America, we grow up with “if you work hard, you will be successful.” Does this book falsify this assumption?


A residual question is How can anybody afford to grow old?


Why does Bruder talk about the town of Empire, Nevada? What lesson is she trying to share with us?


Bruder talks about those who adopt to being vandwellers that they are driving away from the impossible choices that face what used to be the middle class. What choices are they facing? Do you think their responses are good ones? What other response do you think they had? How would you respond to these choices?


Bruder found that In America, if you don’t have an address, you’re not a real person. What difficulties would a person have without a physical address? What other issues would a person who is a vandweller face?


Bob [Wells] made extreme frugality sound like a path to freedom : liberation instead of deprivation. How can simplifying your possessions lead to liberation? How does this correspond to other simplicity movements, such as Marie Kondo or the Swedish Death Cleaning? Is there a Christian element to this forced simplicity?


The book is now 7 years old. Bruder is making the case that vandwelling is becoming the new normal. Do you think it has become that? Is being houseless acceptable in our society?


Is vandwelling an inherently white prerogative? How come Bruder found that almost nobody of color were in the vandwelling groups? What obstacles would you face if a person of color was a vandweller?


Has your attitude towards Amazon changed any since reading the book? How?


Bruder mentions the Gini coefficient which tries to measure the income/weath disparity from that where a country has its wealth equally distributed. A chart from 2020 showed that the United States has a 45-50% disparity vs Canada which has a 30%. Does this disparity contribute to what the vandweller’s experience? Is this a cause for concern?


What parts of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living? And then my standard question of: How do you want your life to change because you read this book?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Nomadland?

Does this book bring any revelation to you?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most real?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Was there anybody you would consider religious?

How did they show it?

Was the book overtly religious?

How did it affect the book's story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific

What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?

Are these idea’s controversial?

To whom and why?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?



Publisher’s reader’s guide

 

New Words:
  • Opprobrium: harsh criticism or censure.
  • Workampers: Those who follow the work, such as at Amazon, who RV or live in trailers
Book References:

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: AS I WRITE THIS, they are scattered across the country— In Drayton, North Dakota, a former San Francisco cabdriver, sixty-seven, labors at the annual sugar beet harvest.
  • Last Line: This land is ready for her now—one perfect acre, something to build on.
  • How can anybody afford to grow old? Chp 2 The End
  • In America, if you don’t have an address, you’re not a real person. Chp 8 Halen
  • What parts of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living? Chp Coda: The Octopus in the Coconut
 
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword xi
  • Part 1
    • 1 The Squeeze Inn 3
    • 2 The End 29
    • 3 Surviving America 39
    • 4 Escape Plan 69
  • Part 2
    • 5 Amazon Town 95
    • 6 The Gathering Place 115
    • 7 The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous 135
    • 8 Halen 163
    • 9 Some Unbeetable Experiences 183
  • Part 3
    • 10 The H Word 201
    • 11 Homecoming 207
  • Coda: The Octopus in the Coconut 243
  • Acknowledgments 253
  • Notes 257

References:
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