Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work [Hardcover]

Jeanne Marie Laskas (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 13, 2012

Five hundred feet underground, Jeanne Marie Laskas asked a coal miner named Smitty, “Do you think it’s weird that people know so little about you?” He replied, “I don’t think people know too much about the way the whole damn country works.”

Hidden America intends to fix that. Like John McPhee and Susan Orlean, Laskas dives deep into her subjects and emerges with character-driven narratives that are gripping, funny, and revelatory. In Hidden America, the stories are about the people who make our lives run every day—and yet we barely think of them.

Laskas spent weeks in an Ohio coal mine and on an Alaskan oil rig; in a Maine migrant labor camp, a Texas beef ranch, the air traffic control tower at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, a California landfill, an Arizona gun shop, the cab of a long-haul truck in Iowa, and the stadium of the Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleaders. Cheerleaders? Yes. They, too, are hidden America, and you will be amazed by what Laskas tells you about them: hidden no longer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Jeanne Marie Laskas is a reporting and writing powerhouse. With beauty, wit, curiosity, and grace, she doesn’t just interview the people who dig our coal and extract our oil, she goes deep into the mines and tundra with them. She goes nationwide to find the hidden soul of America, the people we depend on most but know the least. She tells the story of the United States from deep inside the machinery that makes it work. Hidden America is essential reading.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“In this thoroughly entertaining study of what some people do that other people would never do, journalist Laskas makes her subjects sing. Some homes in on jobs that the rest of us take for granted—or deny exist—interviewing the people who perform and even like onerous tasks: coal miners, Latino migrant laborers, La Guardia air traffic controllers, Arizona gun dealers, Texas ranchers . . . Refreshingly, Laskas eschews sentimentality but imbues her portraits with humanity and authenticity . . . Laskas’s depications are sharply delineated, fully fleshed, and enormously affecting.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Jeanne Marie Laskas has spent years finding and listening to the people we can’t do without, but sometimes forget are there. What they told her is at once heart-warming, funny, sad, ironic, and, most of all, insightful. She is a wonderful listener who gives us new and better perspective on what keeps America working. A fine piece of reporting and writing – a ride well worth taking.”—Bob Schieffer

“It’s not a stretch to use the name Studs Terkel in the same sentence with the name Jean Marie Laskas. She’s one hell of a journalist, a world-class storyteller who takes us where we may not want to go, then makes us grateful we took the trip. Hidden America is not just a good read, it’s an important one.”—Linda Ellerbee

“Hidden America is a literary miracle. In effortlessly lucid prose, Jeanne Marie Laskas tells stories that spellbind precisely because they remind us of the center that quietly holds America together. You will fall in love with, want to have a beer with, and maybe shed a tear for, her entire cast of obscure heroes.”—Robert Draper, author of Do Not Ask What Good We Do and Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush

“Jeanne Marie Laskas has for years taken her readers inside the lives of ordinary people with her intimate, insightful journalism. Hidden America is a finely crafted look behind the curtains of everyday life – think Dirty Jobs for the literate set.”—Mike Sager, author of Wounded Warriors

Praise for Jeanne Marie Laskas

"A wonderful writer, smart as they come, and a real joy to read."—Annie Dillard

"Laskas is the thinking woman's Erma Bombeck [with] a talent for finding wisdom in everyday life."—Andrea Sachs, Time.com

"Fresh, funny and perceptive, salted with that fine edge of irony and self-deprecation that makes you laugh at her and yourself, and just the basic craziness of her life. She can move you to tears, or make you blow tea out your nose with unexpected laughter."—Tom Schroder, Washington Post

"A formidable reporter and one damn fine writer."—Esquire

About the Author

Jeanne Marie Laskas is the director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in many publications, including GQ, where her exploration of coal miners was a finalist for the National Magazine Awards, and The Washington Post Magazine, where her long-running weekly column, “Significant Others,” was the basis for a trilogy of memoirs. She lives in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (September 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399159002
• ISBN-13: 978-0399159008
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars How the Other Half Works September 9, 2012

By takingadayoff TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

It's the first question you ask when you meet someone - "What do you do?" Teacher, police officer, grocery checker, we know what these jobs look like, how they are important. Jeanne Marie Laskas decided to look at the jobs that we don't see, the ones that we rarely think about that are fundamental to the way we live. Coal miners, sanitation workers, migrant workers, keeping the energy flowing, the garbage hidden, the produce cheap.

Hidden America reads like a collection of magazine articles, and you can read them in any order. Laskas opens with the coal miner chapter, and it is certainly the most dramatic. We don't think about miners except when there's a mine accident or a strike. Laskas spends a few months with the miners, 500 feet below the surface. She describes the 5-foot high tunnels that the men work in, the unsettling cracking sounds the earth makes down there, the claustrophobic atmosphere and the stories the miners tell of accidents they've experienced or just barely avoided. She repeatedly asks the men if there's anything they like about the work, and they change the subject, answering the question by avoiding it.

I especially enjoyed the profile of air traffic controllers at LaGuardia. As a former controller, I found Laskas's description perfectly accurate. She captures the way the controllers talk, how they are risk-averse not only in their work, but in their own lives, and how the constant battle between the union and management takes its toll on them.

The chapters are not uniformly excellent - the one on migrant workers didn't hold my attention. For an excellent look at the life of migrant workers, check out the first part of Gabriel Thompson's book, com/Working-Shadows-Year-Doing-Americans/dp/B004I1JQ9I">Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do. And one of the jobs Laskas reports on is not exactly hidden - the cheerleaders for the Cincinnati Bengals football team. It's interesting, but neither hidden nor important, which all of the other jobs in the book are.

The chapters on working at the gun store, at the landfill, and on the oil rig in polar Alaska were all fascinating. I didn't expect to care that much about guns, oil, or garbage, but Laskas' skill in interviewing and explaining, matched with the enthusiasm of most of the workers was irresistible. Nearly everyone she talks to loves their job (except the miners) and is proud of the expertise they bring to it. Read more ›

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Good subject, lots of filler, artificial voice November 9, 2012

By Paulette

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book could have been wonderful. The theme, and the actual occupations the author has selected, are unusual and interesting. Unfortunately, the book is about 40% interesting material, and 60% fluff and filler. I would have liked to have learned more about life on an oil rig, and in a coal mine, and as an air traffic controller. But the author decided to use an artificial, gritty 'badass' (to use one of her favorite adjectives) voice, and dumbed down the book and, even worse, her subjects to almost cartoon level.

It's still an interesting read, since the subject matter is compelling, but be prepared to skip large sections of text to avoid the tedium of her prose, and the considerable amount of filler.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Learned a Great Deal September 30, 2012

By Karie Hoskins VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

For some reason, I thought that "Hidden America" would be similar to "Nickel and Dimed"...unearthing the true stories behind some of the least glorious jobs that keep our country running. But this account of the lives of migrant workers, to professional football cheerleaders to air traffic controllers is much less emotional. Jeanne Marie Laskas does an excellent job of keeping the politics out of the story. (As best she can...when talking about immigrants and union workers...the politics are always simmering away in the background.)

"This book has no new slogans to add to the shouting, offers no charged rhetoric to the cause of the 99 percenters or the 1 percent. If Hidden America takes any position at all, it is necessarily from the sidelines, underneath, above, or deep inside. It speaks from these vantage points - captures the quiet, nuanced conversations that the shouting and the sloganeering drown out. Hidden American doesn't have and argument to make. Hidden American is busy. Hidden America is tired."

These are important stories to tell. Many of the people profiled in this book are the ones that keep this country running. They pick our food, they land our planes safely. Because Americans (in general)... "We have work to do, papers to sign, mortgages to make. We are civilized. We don't meet the cattle whose briskets we eat, we don't know the shape or color of the hands that pick our lettuce. Peaches, or celery. If the disconnect between us (the people who demand) and them (the people who supply) says anything about us, it's probably not flattering."

I feel like I learned a great deal from this book.... From interesting facts (I was STUNNED to find out how very little professional cheerleaders make) to thought provoking ways of looking behind the scenes. I've always thought that coal mining would be an unbearably hard profession, but Laskas gives the small details of the day-to-day life of a miner that really drive the point home. She also makes side comments the way I might in an unknown situation...with some of the same results.

"He gets on the elevator, plunges five hundred feet down - fifty stories, just - down. The elevator opens up and everything is white. That's the first weird thing. White?"

"They just paint this opening part white to cheer everyone up?" I said to Foot the first time I saw it. He didn't even dignify that guess with a response. "It's like, a joke?" I said. "Irony? A little humor to start your day before you move into black?"

"He said, "I think you'll find there are no aesthetic choices, nor is there irony, in a coal mine."

This is a good collection of differing professions, professions that few of us think about and even fewer of us do...but ones that are integral to our way of life. Read more ›

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars JF Review October 21, 2012

By The Wordman

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book is well written but is extremely wordy. It seems she tries to make the same points over and over again. I think she should have left more voice to the actual people she was interviewing. Having said all that, I think it was a book worth reading. Not at the level of "Working."

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Can be enjoyed in small bites October 11, 2012

By Baldy

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was going on a cruise and thought the book with its many chapters could be enjoyed in bite size pieces and I was right. Each chapter stands alone. The stories give interesting and unique insights into jobs/professions we have all heard of but have not thought about. So, of course, some stories are preferred over the others. They are well written and therefore keep your interest. Unfortunately, the stories are more like appetizers without a main course. Glad I read them, but did not take anyway any overall conclusion, except it must have been a lot of fun for the author doing all the field research to get the stories.