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

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.

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    

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.