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<\/a><\/p>\nWhen a college friend called me to tell me there was a job opening at the insurance company where she worked\u2014that paid almost twice what I was making at the time, I figured it was a no-brainer. I was getting ready to apply to M.F.A. programs and as someone who didn\u2019t have a family who could support me financially, what better way to maximize my time as a sell-out than making as much money as possible over the next year and then getting the hell out of dodge? One year turned into twenty years, and when I finally managed to leave corporate America to try to make it as a writer, I did so having lined up my pockets and my retirement plans. It\u2019s now been five years since then, and as more time passes, the more bizarre it seems that I thrived in such a toxic environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staying in corporate America as I struggled to carve a path for my writing career radically transformed my class in American society. But that\u2019s not all I got out of the two decades of working full time. I was left with a lifelong preoccupation with workplace dynamics that has consumed me and my work as a fiction writer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After my first novel was published\u2014where my protagonist Luz swiftly loses her job in the first chapter and must redefine who she is in the absence of work\u2014I wanted to turn my attention to tackling the complexities of a job while my central characters were still in it. In The Grand Paloma Resort<\/a>, I decided to follow a cast of employees who work in a luxury resort and, through the course of one week, are consistently pushed to become more and more callous at times toward themselves, at other times toward members of their own community. I also wanted to create an atmosphere where it would be clear that work can be a refuge from heartache and isolation, that it is a seductive, life-affirming pursuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to offer you a list and a truth: the defining books of our time are mostly rooted in a person\u2019s relationship to work. Below are seven books that tackle this in a myriad of ways: from views into the lives of a working population during genocidal mandates from the government, to tender illuminations on what it means to be part of a society that fails to count women\u2019s work as labor, to the seduction of wealth and power that lead many of these characters to become complicit in systems that benefit from their own dehumanization, each of these novels offers an unvarnished understanding of an individual\u2019s search for self-actualization through labor.<\/p>\n The Farming of Bones<\/a> by Edwidge Danticat<\/p>\n Published in 1998, Danticat\u2019s historical novel follows Amabelle, a young Haitian woman who lives through the 1937 Parsley Massacre in the Dominican Republic. Amabelle is a domestic worker who lost her parents in the river that would become the setting for tens of thousands of murders decades later. In this lyrical novel, Danticat weaves the present and the past in a dream-like structure, showcasing the fluidity of a border between two countries where most people travelled daily for work and commerce. Danticat is deft at showcasing the class divide between the Haitian workers and the rich Dominicans they work for\u2014here the toxic work environment extends past private homes, beyond sugarcane plantations to encompass an entire country. Early on in the novel, we witness as the death of a sugarcane worker goes unpunished due to the status of the person who commits the crime. Amabelle becomes aware of the intricacies of state-sponsored crimes as her employer is a high-ranking member of the army. As news spreads that the government has unleashed a massacre, we follow Amabelle as she attempts to find her lover and escape death.<\/p>\n How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water<\/a> by Angie Cruz\u00a0<\/p>\n Cara Romero is a protagonist unlike any other. The novel is a one-sided conversation between a senior citizen, Cara, and a work-place counselor who is attempting to help Cara re-enter the workforce after she has lost her factory job during the great recession of 2007. It becomes clear to the reader that there\u2019s a big difference between being unpaid and out of work. Afterall, Cara works almost non-stop in her community from picking up and dropping off children, to helping feed and care for the elderly and beyond. Yet, the precariousness of her circumstances is exacerbated because the cycle of poverty, housing insecurity, and job insecurity are intricately connected. Cruz is masterful at establishing the gender dynamics that activate one of the biggest rip offs in modern society\u2014women\u2019s work isn\u2019t just unpaid; it is often unacknowledged as true work.<\/p>\n Victim<\/a> by Andrew Boryga\u00a0<\/p>\n After witnessing his father\u2019s murder at the tender age of twelve, Javi Perez learns there is much that can be capitalized about victimhood. His teacher offers him a pass to the nurse to deal with his grief, which Javi uses to cut class. Eventually, he learns he can use tragedy to pave the way for his ambitions to become a successful writer, and as his own fountain of tragedy thins, he begins to appropriate and manufacture tragedy in order to scale the echelons of the writing world to much success. This debut is delicious in so many ways. I loved how Boryga tracks Javi\u2019s transformation from victim to victimizer, and how this propulsive path is fueled by greed and ambition. The questions in this book about how personal history can be commoditized and how there is always someone ready to cash in loom large. Those who prosper from stories of victimhood and systemic oppression are rarely those who suffer the most.\u00a0<\/p>\n Colored Television<\/a> by Danzy Senna<\/p>\n As someone who \u201csold out\u201d for several decades of my life, there was something wonderfully comforting about seeing that experience reflected to me in Danzy Senna\u2019s hilarious novel, Colored Television. Jane, a mixed-race woman in her thirties, has been suffering as an underpaid academic for decades, waiting to finish a novel that she believes is genius and will launch her into tenure and financial stability. But beyond that, we quickly discover Jane\u2019s true desire is wealth and status because of what she\u2019s been deprived of. When her friend Brett, a successful television writer, allows Jane and her family to move into his mansion to house-sit, she gets to cosplay at being rich. This experience animates her desire to a point where she lies her way into meeting Brett\u2019s television agent and pitching an idea that sounds awfully close to a television show Brett has been developing.\u00a0<\/p>\n So much of what happens for the rest of the novel felt powerfully insightful for those of us stuck on the bottom rungs, striving. I loved that Jane\u2019s immediate response to being told her novel was a failure was to pivot toward what she considered the life-draining world of television on the way to an easier life. The concrete material goods Jane feels entitled to and cheated of\u2014good schools, a great house in a multi-cultural neighborhood, a finance stress-free life, the right support for her special needs son, an American Girl doll for her daughter\u2014leads directly to exploitation. Senna offers such a wonderful ride that reveals complicity, duplicity, in a wild, page turning narrative.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Here Comes the Sun<\/a> by Nicole Dennis-Benn<\/p>\n Dennis-Benn\u2019s debut novel, Here Comes the Sun, follows sisters Margot and Thandi as they struggle to survive in a Jamaican town that largely caters to a tourist economy. Their mother Delores sells trinkets to tourists to support her family and has committed inexcusable acts that placed her daughters in danger. I was most fascinated by Dennis-Benn\u2019s portrayal of older sister Margot, who works at a resort and is also involved in sex work. Once exploited, Margot becomes an exploiter as she hides her deepest desires and identity. She is a difficult character to understand yet so much of what motivates her actions is trying to create a better life for her little sister. Dennis-Benn\u2019s portrayal of the ways siblings attempt to step in for a parent\u2019s shortcoming is poignant. This is a complex novel that digs into the underbelly of tourism, homophobia, and colorism.<\/p>\n The Farm<\/a> by Joanne Ramos\u00a0<\/p>\n
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