Twelve titles that center work & working-class lives

Dustin M. Hoffman writes stories about working people. His newest story collection is Such a Good Man. He’s also the author of the story collectionNo Good for Digging and the fiction chapbook Secrets of the Wild. His first book One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He’s published more than one hundred stories in journals including Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, Masters Review, Witness, Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, and One Story. Before getting his MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University and his PhD in creative writing from Western Michigan University, he spent ten years painting houses in Michigan. Now he lives in South Carolina and teaches creative writing at Winthrop University.

At Electric Lit Hoffman tagged "twelve books of poetry and prose that depict not just working-class people but that foreground work as the feature." One title on the list:

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

I also adore Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, which depicts low-wage restaurant work in some of Orwell’s most scene-driven narrative. But The Road to Wigan Pier is an absolutely brilliant and insightful investigative piece into the work and conditions of coal miners. When I first read this, the television show Dirty Jobs was quite popular, and Orwell was doing something similar yet much more in-depth—full immersion into this very dangerous, dirty job. He depicts the human lives at the center of this work with great sensitivity, while also capturing the sensory pain of forever crouching so as not to bang your head on a rocky roof. The book goes on to discuss class consciousness and socialism in ways that still feel valid and important today. Beyond being fascinating and important, this is such an entertaining read. I’m a huge Orwell fan, but I actually find Animal Farm and 1984 overly didactic to the point of being a bit obvious. In my opinion, Orwell’s nonfiction is his most interesting work.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Road to Wigan Pier is among Ben Highmore's ten best books about houses and Robert McCrum's books to inspire busy public figures.

--Marshal Zeringue