See the Woman Who Couldn't Land a White-Collar Job -- Only a Five Spot!
Love her, hate her, or wish she'd stop looking down her nose at the people she's writing about, Barbara Ehrenreich knows how lance the zeitgeist and get conversations flowing. She's the oil to Ann Coulter's vinegar. And she's got a new book out: Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, in which she pretends to be someone else and searches for a white-collar corporate job. She fails, and damns the white-collar world as one of "economic cruelty." (We hope that wasn't too much of a spoiler.)
It's a mirror-image sequel to Nickel and Dimed, in which Ehrenreich spent a few months living as a minimum-wage worker. Some people consider that book to be a landmark work in social criticism, while others consider it mostly annoying, even if she makes some good points.
Seattlest hasn't read Bait and Switch yet, but we've noticed that it's garnering similar responses. Slate ran an interesting dissection of the book, in which Tyler Cowen and Alan Wolfe agree that Ehrenreich made a terrible job seeker and disagree about how much of a problem she's actually uncovering. (Melissa Block asks Ehrenreich a few related questions towards the end of her interview on All Things Considered; we think she dodged the issue.)
SFist Jackson has read Bait and Switch:
It wasn't nearly as tightly composed narrative as her previous effort, Nickle and Dimed. Also, the empathy she had in the previous book was sorely lacking, and she often comes off as arrogant and 'superior' to the other people, which belies a life spent in sheltered in academia and non-profits.
We, of course, encourage you to judge for yourselves -- and you can start tonight. Ehrenreich is speaking at Town Hall Seattle tonight at 7:30, sponsored by Elliott Bay Books. Tickets are $5, available at Elliott Bay. Call (206) 624-6600 for more information.
