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Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register
by Ann Larson
In the tradition of bestselling classics such as Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and Benjamin Lorr's The Secret Life of Groceries comes a character-driven exploration of the modern supermarket, unpacking what works and what doesn't, and delivering a blueprint for a better way to shop.
Grocery stores may all seem the same. But the supermarket as an institution is anything but ordinary or one-dimensional. At the supermarket where I worked, I found a microcosm of society: a place of brutality and violence as well as solidarity and the promise of change.
Unemployed and looking for work during the pandemic, journalist and activist Ann Larson found a job as a cashier at a supermarket in Utah. Though she had written about low-wage work for years, nothing could have prepared her for what she experienced.
Informed by her time behind the register, Cleanup on Aisle Five is Larson's deep dive into supermarkets and how they operate from the inside out: from the low-wage workers stocking the shelves and the customers coming through at all hours, to the communities these stores serve and the larger capitalist forces and corporate interests at play that control how we shop for food. In the process, she chronicles the evolution of the grocery store, unpacks the political implications of the battles between shoppers and staff, and invites us to imagine grocery stores as places where one can foster community and even equity—if we can separate food distribution from profit motive.
Deeply reported and refreshingly insightful, Larson follows the interactions between the workers, including Stanley who can't afford a sandwich, Nick who doesn't have health insurance, and Scarlet who is all out of patience, and customers, including the old lady who finds comfort in tidying the shelves to the one homeless guy who only comes in to use the facilities. From the unforgettable characters to the common challenges we face when it comes to food, Cleanup in Aisle Five will forever change the way we look at grocery stores.
"This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larson's 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)
"Persuasive … amiable. This compassionate book will make some shoppers think twice. In a forward-thinking conclusion, Larson offers ideas for addressing 'economic precarity' among grocery workers…. In this thoughtful memoir, a former grocery store worker calls for industry reform." —Kirkus Reviews
"An inside view of how supermarkets are microcosms of society, including social divisions and injustices…. Larson draws readers into the stories of grocery workers and how food distribution and profit could change for the betterment of society." —Booklist
"This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larson's 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 We'll Miss It When It's 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
This information about Cleanup on Aisle Five was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ann Larson's writing on education, debt, and low-wage work has appeared in The New Republic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fast Company, and The Nation, among other publications. She is coauthor of Can't Pay Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition and is a fellow with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
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