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

Promotional Information

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Promotion through economichardship.org

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.

Reviews

"The subjects' voices jump from the page with pain and hope.  More than that, they’re a provocation to the reader to consider the fine line between the lives of the “middle precariat” and their own, if there is one. Whether it’s the ironies of telling working people not to smoke when the system does precious little to secure basic health care, an underpaid adjunct instructor handing her EBT card to her student clerking at the local grocery store, or a person with hearing impairments whose doctor thinks that hiding her condition as a “surprise” for a medical student is a hilarious joke, the editors position the voices of the disadvantaged as compelling, worth listening to, and valuable." —Booklist, Starred Review

"These emotionally charged and heart-wrenching narratives are both wide-ranging and powerfully rendered.... A penetrating collection that is certain to challenge the readers’ views of those living in poverty." —Kirkus




"Going for Broke is a gut punch, a collective portrait of precarity, a book of testimony and astonishing courage. This is a book with a pulse. It’s angry, as it must be, and often beautiful, and always brilliant with the illumination of injustice. These essays and memoirs and poems and pictures—this documentary art—is vital, intimate, and necessary. Please, read this heartbreaking, heart-mending volume.”
—Jeff Sharlet, New York Times-bestselling author of The Undertow and The Family

“Going for Broke is an illuminating compendium of essays, poetry, photos and illustrations about the impact of inequality, bias, and poverty on the lives and careers of professional mediamakers. These deeply personal accounts deliver keen critiques of fractured and dehumanizing systems, but they also offer unexpected solutions and reveal the depth of human resilience. Going for Broke is ultimately a powerful example of why diversity in media matters—that journalism informed by a variety of lived experiences leads us to a more profound understanding of our disjointed, dynamic world.”
—Bernice Yeung, author of In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers

“This moving anthology breaks down the barriers between experience and interpretation. Its contributors explore the underside of American society from many angles. But they do more than document hardship—they show how ordinary people who’ve been exploited and left behind forge understanding and solidarity out of the experience.”
—Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America

“What the informative, insightful, nuanced, and gut-wrenching stories in Going for Broke show, over and over, is that the only difference between the haves and the have-nots is opportunity…. An eloquent plea…. As both EHRP and Going for Broke argue, policy and reporting will only be effective when informed by – if not actually driven by – the people that know what they’re talking about.” —PopMatters