Since the Layoffs

By Iain Levison

Book Overview

" A] dark, satirical comedy. . . . Written with the same kind of deadpan humor Levison used so well in his first book."--USA Today

"A gleeful satire. . . . It's an amusingly bleak little (im)moral fable."--Detroit Free Press

"Exciting, funny, poignant and sociologically important."--The Chicago Tribune

"Levison's irony is acute as he caricatures the working world's groundlings."--The New York Times Book Review

The work Jake Skowran is offered is a lot less than legal. He's got little choice except to take it. The guys who owned the factory have left town for someplace where there's more sun and cheaper labor. The deserted plant is fenced in and the fence topped with razor wire, as if they'd worried that the locals would steal tractor-building equipment and start making tractors in their basements. Jake's girlfriend has also decamped (along with the vacuum cleaner and the entertainment center).

"She went off with some used car dealer, huh?" his bookie mocks.

"He was a new car dealer," Jake retorts.

Jake's got six months of unemployment left before he's dead broke and the locks get changed. Life has turned into one big downgrade. It has downsized and hardened him. He's up for anything. The economy is pain, lies and silliness, and he is going to carve off a piece of it for himself or die trying.

Iain Levison is the author of A Working Stiff's Manifesto, an account of his postcollegiate work experience, consisting of 42 jobs in 10 years. He lives in Philadelphia.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569473625
• ISBN13: 9781569473627
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

A Great Story!

I bought this book when it came out last Spring and I must have read it five or six times already. A great story that is biting commentary on how the economic system we're all forced to live (and work) under is destroying our lives, country and planet. This book is extremely well-written. I highly recommend it!

I loved this book

Not only is this book an excellent read, you really sympathize with the main character's plight and the way he gets out of it. God, I hope Iain Levison writes more like this!

Wonderful! Gets it just right

This is a great read. He has just the right tone, understands people who have been laid off. Both insightful and hilarious at times. Memorable.

An excellent read

Loved this book, couldn't put it down until I was finished. An interesting look at one man's desperate choices after layoffs and factory closings in a small, forgotten town. Startling, funny, smart and insightful.

NEW AND IMPROVED!! The Americn Service Economy.

A rib tickling, shocking, empathetic look at the "almost" probable consequences of corporate layoffs, unemployment and the destruction of a culture. It is where profitability and potato chips trump people. Levison effectively and poignantly weaves the banal with the sublime to drive home the lessons of our new economy---unemployment and service. The book is fiction but it feels like reality. For instance, our laid-off hero after killing a corporate type, purchases a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner to mop up the mess (evidence). Why was Mr. Corporate killed? It has something to do with potato chips and profitability and our laid off hero's low-wage service job. Clever details and the ironic nuances of American material culture make this book a damn good read. If you enjoyed the vicious kidnappers in the film Fargo driving around in their burnt umber Cutlass Ciera with comfort select-o-season air conditioning, then this is your book. Levison has a good eye that "sees things" and a sardonic writing style that puts it all together in a neat little entertaining, moralistic package.