This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larsons pandemic-era stint as a grocery worker into a rallying cry against corporate greed Dotting her empathetic account with historical tidbits about the evolution of customer service and American productivity, Larson offers a firm rebuke of late capitalism. Essential reading. Publishers Weekly [ starred review]
This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larsons pandemic-era stint as a grocery worker into a rallying cry against corporate greed. The Millions I have been waiting for years for this book, and it did not disappoint. Cleanup on Aisle Five is on fire with indignation and insight about the working lives of the people who help keep us fed, and the larger systems that make it so hard to make ends meet in America. Full of unforgettable characters, fascinating history, and visionary ideas about how things could be better and different. Not to be missed. Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist but Well Miss It When Its Gone
"Cleanup On Aisle Five is a valuable front-line look at 'essential work' and the people who do it. As insightful as it is fun to read, you'll never look at the checkout line the same way again." Malcolm Harris, bestselling author of Palo Alto
Ann Larsons Cleanup on Aisle Five is a striking, you-are-there account of the struggle to survive and survive ona low wage job in todays America. This cash-register-eye view account of the perils and the occasional pleasures of retail work shines, full of unexpected details about laboring in the places many manage not to see (how difficult it is to herd shopping carts, for example). This is a cruel moment in history: Larsons political and moral refinement and scholarly interpretations are restorative. Born blue collar and trained as an academic, Larson is part of a longer legacy of class defectors. A notable entry in the canon of working-class literature. Alissa Quart, author of Squeezed and Bootstrapped, Executive Director, Economic Hardship Reporting Project
"Downward mobility is a feature, not a bug, of working life in the 21st century, and Ann Larson has come to illuminate the experience from within. Cleanup On Aisle Five is at once a thoughtful and self-critical meditation on class, the body and the limitations of good intentions, and a deep investigation into that most American institution: the grocery store. The workers who make our meals possible have long been treated at once as essential and expendable, never more so than during COVID-19, when Larson joined their ranks. In placing her own experience in a longer history of U.S. supermarkets, Larson reminds us that things have been done differently, and could be again. We simply don't have to live this way." Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Wont Love You Back
"If you have ever been irritated by long lines at the grocery counter or an overly complicated self-checkout machine, Ann Larson's eye-opening account of her supermarket sojourn explains the reasons why. It's not some technical glitch, but a work regime that oppresses the soul and damages the bodies of a low-paid, rapid-turnover set of very human men and women. Larson's account of worklife immiseration near the bottom of the class hierarchy will take its place with the classic accounts once offered by Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Harrington, and George Orwell." Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business
A riveting, anecdotal report from the front lines of retail. Larson gives us eye-opening insights into the factories of our consumer society that we call supermarkets, while reminding us that wherever there is harm and disrespect for workers, there is also solidarity. Andrew Ross, author of Bird on Fire and Fast Boat to China
