A Living

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WORKING-CLASS AMERICANS TALK TO THEIR DOCTOR

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A Living is a vivid portrait of the working lives of the patients who visit Dr. Michael Stein, a primary care doctor in urban America. What makes his patients unique is that they, by and large, do demanding manual labor. Very few have the luxury of working remotely, or seated.  

Inspired by Studs Terkel’s classic Working, Stein produces an eye-opening look at what it’s like to have to work long hours at physical jobs for a paycheck in America. A Living is composed of vignettes, snap shots of people’s working lives, the dramas, disappointments and frustrations workers have with their colleagues, family co-workers, and supervisors.

And yet it also captures the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, the opportunities for initiative and self-expression that come from doing intricate work with one’s hands. Work gives Stein’s patients a sense of identity and a social environment to thrive in.

Ultimately, A Living is an extraordinarily powerful and poetic tableaux of working-class America at this moment when manual labor may be the final refuge in the new era of AI.

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Praise for A Living

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"A little bit Orwell, Terkel, Ehrenreich, and very much America right now. Read it and you’ll understand your country better." -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

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"For me, reading this book was like sitting in an old union hall filled with voices speaking in a wide range of tones – stoical and aggrieved, resigned and determined, angry and poignant. This is an important book for our times. I wish every member of Congress would read it." -- Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Soul of a New Machine

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"Stein wisely comments on the weariness that so many workers experience. An eye-opening and empathetic look at the lives and plights of workers in contemporary America." -- Booklist​​

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"Though Stein is candid about the inequality and injustice of the world of labor, A Living is a generous, gracious and ultimately hopeful book about the reality of life and work in America today.” -- Gavin Francis, author of Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence

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