did. how he did what he did. and i think that's the deep dive and it's first accept for all of us to really understand -- our enemy. afterwards airs on booktv every saturday at 10 p.m. eastern and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern and pacific. now on booktv the 15th annual wisconsin book festival from the state capitol in madison over the next eight hours we'll have a full lineup of authors on a range of topics life in janesville, wisconsin after the town gm plant closed to the vietnam war offensive report on fires at american universities. first up is journalist jessica, she rots on living working conditions of migrants working in the united states. >> like that --

i'm director of the wisconsin book festival i want to thank all of you for coming out this morning to celebrate 15th anniversary of the wisconsin book festival. yeah go ahead. [applause] i'm incredibly proud to be the director at this moment. the book festival is livelier than it has ever been having expanded into year round eastbound traffics we're getting more and more people involved that faces in this room that i know are wonderful that faces in the room that i don't know, are -- exactly as wonderful. i hope you leave this and invite ag friend to the next hours or days or even into november and january of next year. and this truly has been a tran sending year for us we will definitely end the year with the most people we've seen in wisconsin book festival events in our entire history and i couldn't't be happier about tha. i want to take this time to

thank madison public library they provide staff time works really hard for me especially overer this and they're here rit now behind the scenes. and they also gives all of this space for free. that is one of the main things that keeps events going is that we have a place to do them and we have an audience like you that comes to see them i want to thanks the library public funds from individual, organizations and businesses, that keep event the free and open to the public. that really to me is orr thing that makes the book felt so special. anyone can come to any event for free any time. and i hope that you care about that as much as i do and i think because you kale at 10:30 on a saturday you probably do. so thank you. i also i loveed this moment kicking off saturday at the book festival question will do more events todays than thursday, friday, saturday, with sunday combined but energy this this room and building right now is incredible my daughter is downstairs see her first book

festival event i hope some of you are see first book event and we have to see more. i want to -- i'm also delighted to be introducing jeff this morning for land a story that is not being told and told in such an incredible way. it goes with -- goes out request the people who are really the -- untold story of the greats recession, people who are underwater on mortgages for whom social security is not going to make ends meet and up their safety net and give up family, socials, tie, health insurance,p to go travel the country and try to find work. they are new form of migrant workers also potentially a new form of what retirement looked like in america. and just went out with them and tell they will their story so put your hand together for jeff.

[applause] >> oh, my goodness, all right. this is my first time in madison. and -- i think this is a large per group of people than were in attendance when i launched the bookla in brooklyn kind of my he turf so forgive me if i'm overwhelmed with deer in the headlights eyes i'm funnel coffee but i'm excite that side you're hereea and i appreciate . i wanted to thank connor and library and festival for holding something that draws together such a neats array of book i'm excited to be a guest here and check out other books as well and thank you for come out on a saturday morning in the drizzle to chat about this project. sop i'm really grateful for that and i wanted to say thanks. [laughter] so ink figured i would start off by telling you a little bit about genesis of the book itself and then read a little bit and do q and i and i would be happy about to chat about anything that you would like to know more about.

but for me so i'm a journalist and we read a lot. and -- a lot of times i feel like my students i teach grad students in journalism they expect that ideas jump fully formed out of journalist heads like -- afino and that it is magical no influence and truth is a little more boring. [laughter] with me throrp no lightning bolts and i read about library behind headlines will robots oat our jobs how do we hide from them?? what is going to happen -- there's a lot of other stuff going on just in the day-to-day. in terms of how people wok and what it means to be working in an economy where so many changes are happening at the same time. soam somebody who was really addicted to reading about that -- i readic a story back in 2011. that some of you may have read

are as well it made a lot of headlines and it came out of a very scrap ji little newspaper called the ellen town morning call, andnd as somebody who coms out of newspapers i love it when it is scrappy paper gets a scoop. but the scoop was a little distressing because what the scoop told us was that in an amazon warehouse, temperatures were going up to 110 degrees and rather than open the bay door which they feared could leave to theft, or in sell air-conditioning -- the managers had stationed ambulances outside and they were there to essentially scoop up people as they drop it solves thee problem. so i hear all of the gas desperation i can tell you i felt the same sort of thing that kind of blew my mind fast forward and i was reading magazine story where a young reporter went undercover in a warehouse, that was never anew but everybody knew it was amazon, and while i was reading that story, there were two

paragraphs that jumped out a piece that ran over by -- fantastic writer and in jones nibble 2012 and one woman who told mack hey, i -- work here. and i work here and live full-time in rv i can't afford to retire and a program or for people like us and went back to workday and just the general to but my brain got completely statistic itet like having roorh a little scratch and it kept hopping and hopping and hopping and i couldn't get out of that groove so when i'm stuck in a groove i google. [laughter] it is monday and i promise it gets better so i learned more and i did bring show and tell for you. crutch a prop as it were. but i learn about amazon

programs that hires our beers mostly people who are full-time -- and cially traditional retirement age the program called camper ford that grew -- basically came into being just several months after the housing collapsed in 2008. it brings workers on the road full-time toking working in warehouses in months before christmas what that do do is pik and pack and i know a guy walking 15 miles day and i know people who havee gotten various injuries from a sample of people i've spoken to myself and later i spend time undercover there as well although doing that as a woman in late 30s as you can imaginee is a little different. but i still wanted to get a taste for it. so -- what had i realize too was amazon wasn't just a total anomaly there are thousands of employers hiring people in the demographic doing having them do everything from --

working at a trap like wal-mart andma dollywood to theme park called adventure land where one died on the job the summer before last. conveyor belts started up too fast and two doing campground maintenance jobs around country but one can be pretty chamging. so question of that. we have people, i mean, selling fireworks it shall selling pumpkin selling christmas trees that roadside stands you name it. they're doing it and it is kind of shads doe economy that is is all just a cycle of jobs. and a lot of folks who met who are doing it had -- come from housing economy and for various reasons, i mean, if we think about the fact that federal mnl is still at 7.25, though, rent keeps going up and there's a lot of diskt contending factors going on

right now. a lot of people said screw this. i want something that feels a little different that gives me some nor that might in some ways feel like some freedom and they found it on the roads now it is not without chap hads and we'll talk about those too. but yeah i'll start off with a littlebu reading and then we'll take it from there. you guys this story did start a asking magazine piece but i didn't realizet that i would wok on it for three years and drive 15,000 miles in a camper belt which was actually kind of a great part. i mean, it is a great used to be out on road people asking did i keep the van i kept the van. untold and also probably boring story behind the bob is a love stoirp of a girl and her van. [laughter] it was supposed to just be a vehicle for this one project instead become a pretty big of my life so there you have it. that's my hot gossip.

on the foothill freeway about an hour inland from los angeles, a mountain range looms ahead of northbound -- i'm sorry -- u you have to forgive me i have two post post-it notes and oh ot pushed in. sorry about that i begin again. i talk about my van and i get all flustered. all right here we go. as i write this, they are scattered across the country. in north dakota, a former san francisco cab driver 67, labors at the annual sugar beet harvest he works from sun rise in temperatures that dip below freezing, helping trucks that roll in from the fields diskornl multiton loads of beets at night he sleeps in the van that has become his home ever since über squeezed him out of ther taxi industry.. and making the rent became

impossible. in campbellville can i a 66-year-old ex-general contractor stirs ms. during overnight shift at an amazon warehouse pushing wheeled cart for miles along concrete floor it is minds numb work and she struggles to scan each accurately hoping to avoid getting fired. in the morning she returns to tiny trailer mothered at one of self mobile home parks that contract with a.m. dison to put up workers like her. in new burn, north carolina a woman whose home is trailer starts small to be pulled with a motorcycle, is couch surfing with a friend hunt for work even with a master's degree, the 38-year-old nebraska native can't findsk a job despite fillg out hundred was applications in past month alone. she knows sugar beet harvest is hiring but traveling half way across country would require more cash she has.

losing her job the a nonprofit jeers cooing is o one of the reasons she moved into the trailer in the first place after the funding for her position ran out she couldn't afford rent on top of paying off student lobe loans in california, a 30 something couple in a 1975gmc motor home is running pumpkin stand with children carnival and petting zoo which they have five days to set up from scratch on a vacant dirt lot in a few weeks they switch to selling christmas trees. in colorado springs, colorado, a 728-year-old van dweller who cracked three ribs doing a campground maintenance job is recuperating while visit with family. there have always be drifters, hobo, restless soul, but now in the second millennium, a new kind of wandering or tribe see merging.g. people who never imagine are hitting the roads giving up traditional houses and apartments to live in what some

call real estate. vans, secondhand rv school buses, pickup and plain old sedan they're driving away are from impossible choices that face what used to be the middle-class. decisions like -- would you rather have foods or denl work pay mortgage and make a car piment or buy medicine cover rent or student loans, purchase warm clothes or gas for your commute. for many the answer seemed radicalwe at first you can't gie yourself a raise. but what about cutting your biggest expense. trading a stick and brick for life on wheels. some call them homeless -- the new reject that label. equipped with both shelter and prescription they have adopted a different words. they refer to themselves quite simply as houseless. from a distance many of them could be mistaken for care free retired rvs on occasions when

they treat themselves to a movie or o dinner at a restaurant, thy blend in with the crowd. in mindset in appearance they're lrnlgly middle class and wash clothes and join fitness clubs to use shower. many took to the roads after their savings obliterated bit great reseis. to keep their gas tanks and bellies full they work long hours at hard physical jobs. in time of flat wakes and rising housing cost, they have unshackled from rent and mortgages to get by surviving america but for them as for anyone, survival is not enough. so what began as a last ditch effort has become a battle cry for something greatser. being human means yearning for more, as much as foods or or shelter, we require hope. there's hope on the road a by-product of forward momentum a sense of opportunity as wide as the country itself. a bone deep conviction that

something better will come. it's just ahead in the next town.t the next gig. the next changes encount we are a stranger. as it whats, some of those strangers are no mads too when they meet online or at a job or camping way off the grid, tribes begin to form. there's a common understanding a kinship when someone's van breaks downwh they pass the hat. there's a containous feeling. something big is happening. the country is changing rapidly, the old structure is crumble away at the epicenter of something new. around a shared camp fire in the middle of the night it can foal like a glimpse of utopia. as i write, it is autumn. soon winter will come. routine layoffs will start at the seasonal jobs. but they'll pack up camp and return to their real home the road moving like blood cells through the vain are of the country.in

set out in search of friends and family or just a place that's warm. several journey clear across the continent. all will count the miles which unspool like a film strip of america. fasta. food joints and shopping malls -- feels dormant under frost autodealership, mega church and allll night diners feature a plane. feed lot, dead factories, subdivision and big box stores. no cap to peek. the road side reels fast through theay day into darkness until fatigue sets in. blurry eyed they find places to pull off the road to rest. in wal-mart parking lots, on quiet suburban streets, a trk stop amid lullaby of islanding engine. then in the early morning hours, before anyone notices they're back on the highway. driving on there's a cure in

this knowledge the last free place in america. is a parking spot -- all right so in a previous life my day job covering startups. i did not really like covering startup ares. ii had one called start for "the new york times" website and i got to write about neat stuff there. but what struck me most was the amount of jargon i had stumbled upon on a daily basis whether it was inno vattive this is disruptive and you know nine times out of ten whatever was getting called disruptive would enable you to get your dry cleaning back three minutes faster. [laughter] and i don't like bull shit very much. so one of the great things about being out on the road in -- a world with a lot less of that sort of jargon like wait a minute, this is disruptive you

want to see people who have a manage to completely turn it their lives upside down qhor created who are resilient, it was kind of excite because there wasn't really a lot of room for jargon or bull shit because decision people made impacted their day-to-day so immediately, and just d watching what people were able to do -- with circumstances they were happened bid a weird economy was really impressive to o me so -- it's interesting people really --er like to pigeon hole idea so sometimes i think people want td hear about a book like this, and they expect to quack around in ash and bemoaning economy yelling about their lot and that's a huge distortion and other people want it to be freedom and turn up stereo and that's a distortion and life is just somewhere in the middle but

people i did meet again -- i just can't underscore how resilient creative i would argue disruptive they are so i would like to t share about one of thm with you her name is linda may and i met her when i was writing initial spokes for harbor magazine and if i showed up we met in the desert if i said to her that, you know, i'm spend next three years i will sleep in myle van in front of why were daughter hose u house and next ton you in the desert and when you're working in the mountains i think we boats probably would have run away screaming. but over that period of time, not only is she restill by incredibly tolerant and had jeans generosity to share her story with me so i would like to share a little bit with you today. this is where i started before.

on foothill freeway an hour in from los angeles in a mountain range looms ahead of northbound traffic. bringing suburbia to a stop this wilderness is southern em of the san bernardino mountain a tall in the words of the united states gee loming call survey. it is part of a formation that begana growing 11 million years ago looping the san andreas fault still rise today beginning few each year as pacific and north american plates grind past each other. the peeks appear to grow much pennsylvaniaer, however, when you're driving straight at them. they're the kind of site that make you sit up straighter to start swelling sensation in your chest. a feeling like helium crowd your rib cage enough perhaps to carry you away.

linda watching her silver hair that falls past her shoulders is pulled back from her face many a plastic bret she turns off foothill freeway on to highway 330, also, known as city creek road. for a couple of miles the pavement runs flat and wide. then it tapers to a steep with just one lane in either direction. starting the assent into the san bernardino national forest. the 64-year-old grandmother is driving jeep grand cherokee which was totaled sal vanl before she bought it off a tow lot check had engine light flasheshe on whenning nothing is actually wrong and close look reveals that white paint on the hood this washe crumbled and replaced a half shades off from the rest of thes bodies. but after months of repairs the vehicle is finally road worthy. a mechanic had a new shaft and lifters and burr out what she could scrubbing foggy headlight

with old do it yourself trick. for the first tile the jeep is toeing her home a tiny pail yellow hole called the squeeze in if visitors don't get the name on first mentioned she puts it in a sentence. yeah, there's room. squeeze in.ye and smiles revealing deep laugh lines. the trailer is molded fiberglass relic a hunter exact too built many 1974 and originally advertised as a crowding achievement in travel for fun. that would -- follow like a kitten on open road. trapped like a tiger when going gets rough. squeezein feels like a life support cap tule with rounded emtion and slope side of the styrofoam containers once used at hamburgers joints.

inside it measures ten feet from end to end roughly same as covered with wag imon that carrd her great grandmother grandmother across century more than ago. and distinctive touches quilted -- cream colored let'ser covering wall and ceiling with a mustard and avenue cads doe pattern on the floor. the roof is just high enough for linda to stand. after buying the trailer at auction for 1400 dollars she is described it on facebook. it's 5 foote and i'm 5'2" perfect fit. linda is hauling the squeeze in up to help that from the a campground in fine forest northwest of big bear lake and staying there through september but unlike thousands of warm weather visitors who travel for pleasure each year, to the san bernardino national forest, a swaft of wilderness larpger than

state of rhode island she's making this journey for work it is her third summer as a amp groundgi host equal part janito, grounds keeper security guards and welcoming committee. she's enthusiast egg about start job an getting annual raise for returning workers to bump her hourly wage to 9.35 up 30 cents from year before and hiring at will koargt the company's written are employment policy, meaning they can be fired at any time with or without cause or notice. she's been told to expect a full 40 hours of work each week. some first time campground host expect a paid vacation in paradise. it'shearted to blame them. as for the job or splash with photo of glittering creek and wild flower choke meadows. a bro a prieflt confession that

is linda employer shows gray hair passenger side women smiling at a lakeshore, arm in arm like best friends at summer camp. get paid to go camping -- has recruiting banner for american band and leisure to hire camp hosts below headline are testimonial our staff says -- retirementir has never been this much fun. we develop lifelong friendships. we're healthier than we've been in years. newbie are. moan for bulking sometimes quitting when faced with a left picturesque parts of the job. they be sitting drunk noisy campers with the camp fire pit rounds did i visitors like dropping bottle intoin flames to make them explode and then right daily ritual of cleaning out houses. those tendho toilets is most campground host least faith chore linda and others buy it even takes pride in performing

task well. i want them clean because campers are use them she says. i'm not a germaphobe you snap on rubber tbloafs and you do it. as linda reaches san bernardino mountains, the valley views are sublime but distracting road side is narrow with a edge to call a shoulder. along some stretches, there's nothing but empty air past remember bonn of pavement that clings to slope. signs warn rock slide area and avoids overheat. tush off ac next 14 miles. none of this rattles linda, though, her stent of a long haul trucker left her undaunted i'm driving are just ahead of linda. as a journalist i've been spending time with her on and off now for a year and a half. between in fern visits, we've spoken on the phone so many times that --ok

on every call i anticipate her familiar greeting before she even picks up. it's hello spoken in the same three note song you used to say i see you when playing peekaboo with an inpangt i had originally met linda researching a magazine story onaz growing subculture of american who live full-time on the road like inn linda many-of-the- wanteddering soul the were with trying to escape in economic paradox collision of rising wages unstoppable force meeting unmovable october call in a vise putsing all of their time into exhausting soul-sucking jobs that paid enough to cover o rent or mortgage with no way to better their lot for long-term and no promise of ever able to retire. those feelings were grounded and hard fact. wages and housing costs have diverged that for a growing number of americans the dream of a middle-class life has gone from difficult to impossible.

as i write this, there are only a dozen counties and one metro area in america where a full-time minimum wage worker can be at fair market rent and make at least 16.35 an hour more than twice the the federal minimum wage to rent an apartment would spenting more te recommended 30% of income on housing. the consequences are dire especially for the one in six american households that have beense putting more than half of what they make into shelter. for many low income families, thatom means little or nothing leftover to buy food, medication and other sellers. many of the people i met felt they spentnt too long losing a rigged game and so they found a way to hack the system. theysy gave up traditional stick and brick homes breaking the shackles of rent and mormings moved into vans rv and trailers traveled from lace to place and kept gas tank full by working

jobs and linda is a member of that tribe and migrates i've been follow her when et steep climb into the san bernardino want manies begins my emydiness fades and suddenly i'm anxious. ..hb little. watching linda pull the squeeze inn in her rattle trap jeep scares me a lot. earlier she instructed me to drive ahead of her. she wanted to be in the rear following. but why? did she think her trailer could come unhitched and backslide? i never did find out. past the first sign for the san bernardino national forest, a shiny oil tanker truck looms up behind the squeeze inn. the driver seems impatient, a bit too close as they enter a series of s curves that obscures linda from my sight in the rearview mirror. i keep watching for her jeep. when the road straightens out again, it doesn't emerge.

instead, the tanker reappears on the uphill straightaway. there's no sign of linda. pulling into a turnout, i dial her cell phone and hope for that familiarhello. the call rings and ring then goes to voicemail. i park the van, hop out and pace nervously along the driver's side. i try again. no answer. by now more cars, maybe half a i tried again. nodo answer. now one car maybe halfst a dozen have come out of the curves onto the straightaway and pass the turnaround for the try to push down the queasy feeling. adrenaline blooming into panic is the minute slidee past. i will leave you with that literal cliffhanger. c [laughter] what can i tell you? what can i tell you about what happened to linda? you know what i have the say to that,r] right?

i'm not going to do #spoiler alert so you will read the book but linda is all right. don't worry too much. [laughter] spin have there have been any corporate changes? >> to the best of my knowledge,f no. there are a few things on the register that the book addresses and another one that concern me quite a bit with so many people i spoke to about campground hosting which is really a hard job and it's just a little more than minimum wage. you are essentially on call all the time because you are captive audience on that web site but many people told me directly that when they were working they were not able to invoice for full hour.

they were expected to job a and if.a exceeded the number of hours that they were to voice for a dipan date tried to commet about that they were worried about being targeted for firing or just told make it work at the time. it's a tricky job. if somebody bangs on your trailer at 11:00 at night and they want firewood it doesn't matter if you have to get up or sing in the morning and clean the toilets. that's a challenge. what i ended up doing was writing a freedom of information act request to the national forest service which is one of the many many employers. the higher concessionaires, private companies to manage campgrounds and our already controversial particular in the west where there's a lot of vigorous debate over the management of public land and in fact the middleman and make a lot of money. so i did ask for any region. i did e find that even though my

people i talked to said everybody had this problem and nobody complains because nobody get once get fired there were some complaints. it's probably the tip of the iceberg so i called and i said were these investigated and what happened next? what they told me was oh well we hand them back to the concessionaire to forward them. i said wait a minute these are public lands. this is a public trust. i don't understand. you give them back to the concessionaires who people are saying are violating wage laws and again we are not investigating that i feltam lika wet summer in those game shows where you say is that your final answer? the final answer to mymy askings that your final answer is yes that is what we do. there are some things that are little dodgy that came up in this research.

thank you, connor. may please directed to the audience microphone for questions.s. [laughter] sorry, over there. thank you connor. >> first of all thank you very much. the thing that brought it close to home to t me was after i started reading the book i started looking at these campgrounds and found out right here in wisconsin amazon has some down in the racine area. i was shocked to think that i live here and i was not aware of all was going on. could you tell us a little bit and maybe you have it in the book and i haven't gotten that far about your experience working in theirir warehouse? >> sure. it's a little surreal. basically i'm aas journalist. i'd like to tell other people's stories so whenever possible i would be the person following

someone around the worksite. when he came to the campground campground -- campground when she got up in the morning to clean the toilets i was allowed to nerc off card. i would go jogging after her with my camera and she and herbert but is until the end of joint pointing out that piece of litter that i could stop and pick up. so we did that and that's actually my preference. i'd rather serve other people but there were two close worksites that i really wanted to see because from my understanding these are places you go up you want to make a chunk of money in a short time could one was amazon and the other was a no sugar beat harvest which gets marketed as an unbeatable experience. i'd like puns is next is a much much -- as much as the next person but when i find out their puns about the work orszag a little stressed about it that i went undercover to see what that was like and then i went to

amazon. at the time i went to amazon i found many dozens of people and a lot of instances of first-hand accounts of injuries all sorts of stuff and a lot of people coping with the fitness program. amazon was sending out news letters that said -- that there's a little bit of weaponized positive psychology happening. it was weird when i went thererd because thereou aren't any age requirements. at the time ias was 37, two yeas agoo but if you need to get a jb they have one who is in her 50's

funny b i joke it's surreal. working with robots. so it's just kind of this man-machine synthesis thing that's happening, right in and what i'd heard was this would make jobs a hot easier for people because instead of walking 15 miles a day, the robots would be bringing things to you. but what i learned is that that just kind of outsources the jobs to different muscles. inthe stead of lots of walking, you're doing a lot more

stooping, reaching, ladder climbing. we were warned about these ladders. apparently, one of them had gotten caught on one of the robot shelves, and somebody got dragged away. we were told about that in orientation. it was pretty intense and incredibly regimented. even when i went to use the restroom, they urged you to match the color of your urine to a pantone chip to make sure you are adequately hydrated. it kind of set the tone frankly. you feel like you are on kind of a living gameboard. you've got to keep the numbers up. it's pretty intense. i know that's a general take but i hope it's useful. >> first were there other places in wisconsin doing this and second what was the age of the oldest person doing this that you found? >> definitely mid-to-late 70s

so an undercover you can ask direct questions. it's like standing there with your mouth with a sock in it and just listening and feeling like a jerk all the time. one guy who i really know who went 15 miles an hour. if he can do it i can surely do it. i wish i knew more about the wisconsin taken i do not. i don't know if it's happening here. a few years ago i was writing an article for about amazon coming communities and seeking tax breaks and i watched on the internet a vigorous debate by city councilman kenosha when they looked at whether or not to bring somebody in. i was worried then about what this kind of beauty -- beauty pageant meant.

i was trying to picture a bookstore other than -- owner being told that their hard-earned tax dollars were going to subsidize a large monopoly. and it just seems kind of heartbreaking to me. it's probably not exactly what you wanted, for which aapologize. please. >> first, i want to say i'm really thrilled that you're here because i heard you on npr and saw in the flyer that you were going to be at the wisconsin book festival, and my number one choice -- >> thank you. >> -- for coming to a book talk. i was wondering, what are the impressions of the family of the people that are living this nomadic life? you mentioned a lot of them are grandparents and that they stay with relatives and stuff. is so what's the reaction of the younger generations to what they see their elders doing? >> sure. so, no, people ask me that a fair amount too, and it's like, well, where are the kids?

i have to say when i was first meeting the family of one person in this book, i just remember she was already sleeping on the couch, one of the granddaughters was sleeping in what had been a walk-in closet. they told me i could stay the night, i said i'll stay in the van. no pressure, it's all good. but again, we're in a really weird economic time. i can't underscore the fact that federal minimum wage is $7.25 which isn't a floor, it's a basement. so i think a lot of people that i met really didn't want to put pressure on the next generation. they saw them as under enough pressure. and from the next generation's angle, gosh, i remember talking to linda may's daughter audra, and she was telling me, you know, based on the linda may you know, you must think she was always a social butterfly. she has this whole tribe, linda may has a posse. she was, like, she was not this social at home. so sometimes i see them being impressed by the communities that form on the road.

just because there's such an incredible tight-knit, mutual aid, mutual-sharing network that people find themselves joining. and it's a membership that i think it's kind of a non-blood family. it's what the writer would have called a logical rather than biological family. and i think a lot of people are impressed by that. it's not always that rosy. there's one fellow in the book who i'm a big fan of, samir. when i interviewed him and the call to prayer went off on his iphone, he showed me this really cool app he used that was always pointed toward mecca. he went home once for ramadan and his family threw him out for no other reason than someone decided his lifestyle was a bad influence on the kids. and when he told me that story, it shredded my heart. you do hear of strains and also situations where there's just not that much contact. so i've met lots of people whose

families are super supportive and just trying to learn as much as they can to the other end completely where i remember interviewing a pastor in the town of courtside, arizona. he ran a food bank, and i said, okay, what's up with this place, courtside? is and he looked at me and nodded. this guy's seen everything. he was a former biker for christ. i think his son had died of a heroin overdose, and he was just putting his whole life into meeting and helping people out. and he said, well, courtside is a cheap retirement town. and then he said to me, it's also a good place for people to hide. [laughter] and suddenly i'm thinking of all the people i've met, are they all on the lam? what are you talking about. that cannot be, that cannot be. i said, what do you mean? i'm picturing lawrence, and this seems quite impossible. and he says to hide from their kids. [laughter] and gave me -- there was one example where in some situations people were just like, look, i'm going to make it, i'm fine, but

not everybody was fine. some people were doing great, but there was one guy who was in his 80s who'd been visiting the kitchen, and he was found dead in his rv on the gravel terrace of aaronberg. again, i don't have stats on any of this, but there's a -- [inaudible] i speak with all the time. and even just a couple of months ago she was camped way off the grid. she met a really cool guy who was living in an rv, struggling a bit. he was also a painter like her, and they were sharing each other's art and kind of bonding over looking at each other's craft stuff. and one day she came by, and she hadn't seen him in a few days, and there were flies on his screens. so, you know, i'm not saying that's super common. i've got no stats, but i've seen the range of people with a really vibrant support network of family or people with a non-blood family or people who are having a tough time too. thank you.

[inaudible] hey, louis. louis is the doc. [laughter] >> so what perp did you least -- person did you least expect to see here? >> you. [laughter] now that you validated yourself, i feel like i'm allowed to mention you're in the book. >> page 81, i believe. [laughter] >> not that you've read it or anything. >> twice. >> you going to sign mine? i'm asking anybody who shows up -- >> i would. >> thank you. >> would you recommend people try this lifestyle? >> oh, gosh. i mean, would you? so it's really different for everybody. i think some people -- >> would i? >> well, your in it. -- you're in it. >> the eldest elder of the tribe? of course i would. [laughter] >> i'm just a faux nomad. >> i would strongly recommend everybody get out on the road, see america. don't go on the interstate. stay off the interstate. >> little highways.

>> a trend of mine wrote the book "blue highways." if you've read that, read this book. continue. there's thousands of people out there that you will never expect to see. and you can't see them unless you get out on the small highways, get in the back country, get out and meet people. it's a wonderful country. >> thank you. [applause] hey, yes, please. round of applause. [applause] thank you. no, and it's true. one of the things i really hope to do with this book is to show just, to make it harder to pigeon hole people who are out on the road. i mean, there are people here who have been, had all sorts of different lives, all sorts of different lives before they were out on road. done different things all over the world. people who -- gosh, linda may's been everything from a cocktail waitress to somebody who

defeatherrerred quails at a hunting lodge. another guy i met out there was the former head of product development for mcdonald's. he got hit real hard by the great recession. but the stories you hear around the campfire out there are just, i mean, it's so beautiful. please. >> thanks for doing this, and i notice as a journalist you probably do a lot of surveying. and i'm going to ask, do you frequently survey your audience? because today i got here, and i do that a lot as somebody who likes to watch people. there are a lot of gray beards like myself here -- [laughter] and i think it's utterly important that younger people be aware of this phenomenon, because it's affecting our country dramatically, and it's something that i think they need to be cognizant enough of that if they don't start analyzing it, it could be upon them quicker than they think. but is this ten call of an audience -- typical of an audience that shows up to your book readings?

thank. >> sure. man, i want you to come on tour with me and do the surveying, because i'm really just trying to keep it together up here. [laughter] >> i roam america too. >> all right. yeah. so i've got to say it really varies. i talked to a couple hundred high school students which was funny. this was in connecticut. and they didn't warn me. i thought i was going into a classroom, and suddenly i was back in high school. and the only thing i could think of to say was it gets better. [laughter] so contextually, it's really hard to answer that. but point well taken, and i agree these are issues that everybody should be thinking about. >> hi, jessica. >> hi, david. >> my name is david, and i'm a nomad. sounds like -- >> everybody, hi, david. [laughter] >> sounds like i'm recovering from something. i don't know, if i am recovering from something, it's probably from being chronically housed in a sticks and bricks most of my life. now i am very happily living in

a camper that i have carefully built into a really very comfortable home with refrigeration, cooking, wonderful, comfortable bed. i call it my ultralight motor home, and it's a pri us. prius. so, yes, that's pretty unique. i love it though. it works really well in a lot of ways. i'm so happy that jessica wrote this book. i mean, i've been on the road for three years and, oh, my god, i can't believe all the things that she discovered that i haven't seen yet, and i thought i had seen so many things. but she interviewed so many people, and she uncovers such a diversity of people on the road, i really, i really appreciate that you've written the book, jessica, and that it's a very balanced book. she's, she pretty much says what's going on for everybody. and, again, there's just a lot of diversity. there's a lot of diversity of happiness, there's a lot of diversity of seeking happiness

and doing different jobs, etc. i'm lucky in that i don't have to work. i'm retired and, in fact, i have a little money left every month. so that puts me in a little different position, little different perspective in the dealing with working. but certainly, all the stories i've heard of people on the road working jessica really nailed it. so -- >> thank you. and i didn't put him up to that. [laughter] >> you know, i sometimes get a little crowd of people asking me afterwards, and i am open to that if you want to. >> he has a fan club. >> it's her show, not mine. so -- [laughter] >> thank you, david. >> okay, thank you. >> good to see you. please. >> i want to follow up my first question about policy. i think it's great to have the romantic, positive stories, and clearly you've also identified the negative impact and particularly connecting it to the recession. there's a myth that, about the

gig economy being so liberating, and we know clearly in your work before you started this book in looking at that economy that, yes, there are always the 10% or the 20% with the great liberation stories, but for a lot of people it's pretty awful. and whether that's meatpackers in iowa, farm workers in florida, you know, the idea of migrant work in america has been there for a long, long time since "grapes of wrath" days. so i'd just like, you know, before we leave on this wonderful, you know, glorious note about retiring to one's rv that you can address a little bit about the policy possibilities of bringing up the bottom if this is really what our children and grandchild will be facing. i -- grandchildren will be facing. i appreciate your reference to the minimum wage. >> oh, there's so many issues. are you ready? [laughter] let's start. the economy's a mess. i mean, there's the big umbrella

statement for you. it's a mess. and i really worry that a lot of the things that i grew up considering to be ironclad, you know, we all have such short life spans. so, like, i thought retirement for just about everybody was just something that was kind of in the water, right? i thought the 40-hour workweek was something that was going to stick around. i thought people would have weekends. but when you look at the great sweep of time, these are all relatively recent innovations and a lot more fragile than a lot of people realize. one of the great forces eroding all of this is the sunnily-titled gig economy. i would argue that anybody -- yes, there are some tunnels for freedom -- some opportunities for freedom there. but we also saw in the 1980s when pensions gave way to 401(k)s, they were marketed as an instrument of financial freedom which was greek for saying now your corporate bosses aren't responsible. so good luck to you out there in the stock market, have fun. so freedom gets loaded a bit and

abused as a word, i find. i'm worried right now just, again, even in just following this particular subset of a subculture just watching, you know, there was that supreme court case where workers sued amazon saying they deserved to be paid for the time that they spent in line waiting on the metal detector. they lost. there was another case, there's another work camping job that involves guarding the gates9 to oilfields in texas, and, you know, this is a job where somebody has to be there 24 hours a day, but because they're an independent contractor, you're not going to get paid for all our to your time. making people independent contractors on the gig economy has been a way to skirt everything, every gain that the labor movement has made in this country. and it's eroding incredibly quickly. it's very sad. yeah, and employers don't want to pay for benefits. they don't want to have to give you leave, and if you're an

independent contractor, you're not their problem. in a weird way, when i think of work campers, they're kind of an employer's dream. they're plug and play labor. you show up with your house. you are perfectly self-contained. it's almost like the way a usb drive plugs into a computer, right? every slot's the same, you show up, you have it in there for as long z you need it, and then it goes away, and you're not responsible for it anymore. that's how i feel about that. ma'am. >> well, that's a heavy topic. i wanted to get back to the camping aspect of this -- [laughter] although i agree with everything you just said. and i have a specific question, but it comes out of the fact that my husband and i actually lived on the road for two years in our late 30s, and we lived in a tent. and our purpose at that time was to spend a lot of time in wilderness areas. and we just got finished this

summer with what might have been a somewhat similar trip. we own a toyota -- i forget what the name of it is now -- >> [inaudible] >> no, it's a van. we own a van, minivan. toyota minivan, sienna. and we outfitted it out with a platform and put all of our camping gear underneath. and so we travel for five weeks, and next summer we plan on doing it for probably twice as long. but what was interesting to me in comparing the two experiences was that when we did it in our late 30s -- which was quite a while ago -- we had so much flexibility. we could go places in summer anytime, and we could find a place to stay. you -- that is, it's much more difficult now because there are so many people out there, and it's harder to say if you're going to a forest or campground,

particularly if you're going to national parks. it's extremely difficult to be flexible about it. you really need to make reservations. so my question is when you talk about these people being off the grid, way off the grid, i always felt we were pretty off the grid. but i'm wondering what is off the grid, what does it mean to you? what is that nowadays? >> sure. >> because i might want to go there. [laughter] >> in my mind off the grid connotes a level of self-sufficiency. so, for example, in recent years the price of solar panels has come down quite a quite a bit. and one of my favorite anecdotes that i got to share in the book is about a woman who goes by the name swanky wheels. at the time i think she was 70 teaching a trans man who was in his 20s how to install solar panels on the roof of his van which he named, what was it, tillie starlight from the little

engine that could, i think i can, i think i can. he really felt and, you know, he's in his 20s, he felt this was the only way he'd ever a achieve financial independence. he'd worked a ton of jobs. so for him, finding that mentorship -- i mean, swanky even told me her family wouldn't receive her mail anymore, was letting him send his meds, kind of apprenticing him as he was learning to go off the grid. ..

that might be a little different than what people have in mind. spin it's expensive now to stay in a lot of places so the question is where physically, location wise do they consider off the grid to be? >> sure. there are lots of places where you can legally camp for 14 days for free. i'm not going to blow up people's favorite camping spots in this crowd i apologize. there's a lot of urban parking where people are trying to avoid the knock and be as low-profile as possible. we are in an era where we are seeing an increasing criminalization of homelessness where people are being told they can't sleep in their cars. in my mind until somebody hears a parking spot and your car is welcome but not if you are there.

that's saying the value property over people. their national parks right now where the ranger will say show me your address and if you can't prove to me that you live in your domicile you must be homeless and you'll have to get out. you are not entitled to stay anymore. .. my question is how many people are in that land today and how many do you see being there eight years from now? this population is the first nightmare. obviously, everyone needs and address people just have a drivers license people have mail

forwarding services and if you go to south dakota and spend the night in a motel, you show a receipt and people within the housing population so i don't know of any sociologist doing studies on this group. also there are tons of nomads even within the larger nomadic population i am primarily writing mostly about people who are at or nearing retirement age and doing the steps we look at that and there are some younger people doing it as well but not as many -- when i was in amazon i was definitely the only one under 50 and everyone except the one person other than me was over 60. given that based on employers what they said about patients coming in given the numbers of employers the number of jobs i can only tell you that this subset of a culture that i was looking at probably tens of thousands and i would say it is. growing because in 2008 is over but for a lot of people it

didn't end for people who don't have time to make up whatever standings they might have had for who they were line and equity and those opportunities aren't coming. that's where we believe it. does anyone want to continue the conversation i'll be signing books. thank you for coming out. [applause] >> thank you so much to jessica and for all of you. she will be here sunny books and we will resume at noon with nikki. thank you so much, what. >> next up in the wisconsin book festival, nikki looks at the genetics behind all members disease. >> hello. thank you for coming today. i name