The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke

Alvarez, host of the podcast Working People, debuts with an empathic interview collection featuring people who kept “the gears of commerce and society turning” during the Covid-19 pandemic. In lengthy, meandering conversations, Alvarez encourages New Jersey gravedigger Nick Galuppo, for example, to discuss not just the crush of burials in the first three months of the pandemic, but also how his job has robbed him “of that idea of peace, that tranquility of final resting places when people go visit a loved one.” Elsewhere, educator and labor organizer Rebecca Garelli critiques arguments made to “force people back to school” (“If you really cared about students’ mental health... you would have funded counselors in every single building”); Kyle Killebrew, a sheet metal worker from Louisville, Ky., describes the vital role his union played on workers’ behalf during the pandemic; and Mx. Pucks A’Plenty, a burlesque performer in Seattle, analyzes the politics of burlesque and recalls the standing ovation they received in one of their last shows before Washington State shut down. Though the conversations sometimes drag, they also shed light on a wide variety of jobs and convey the essential humanity of the interviewees. This is a stirring record of life in an emergency. (Aug.)