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Janesville

An American Story
Apr 20, 2017
"Janesville" joins a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States. What sets it apart is the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis. The characters are especially memorable. Readers will finish "Janesville" with an extremely sobering takeaway: There's scant evidence that job retraining, possibly the sole item on the menu of policy options upon which Democrats and Republicans can agree, is at all effective. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of "Janesville" is its simple chronological structure, which allows Goldstein to show the chain reaction that something so calamitous as a plant closing can effect. It's not without shortcomings. It can be overwhelming at first, with many characters raining down on the reader at once -- it's a bit like getting caught in a hailstorm of pick-up-sticks. -- from the New York Times review by Jennifer Senior