Nomadland: Jessica Bruder with Margaret Talbot

A growing community of nomads spending their golden years out on the open road, looking for work.

American employers are finding advantages to the low-cost, temporary labor of older workers. These are transient older Americans, people who aren't able to make ends meet on social security alone, many of whom are are casualties of the housing crisis and the Great Recession. Taking to the roads in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, these migrant laborers call themselves “workampers” and can be found picking produce, cleaning campgrounds, and filling boxes at Amazon. In Nomadland, author Jessica Bruder, a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, follows them and narrates this tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—and the precarious future that may await many of us. 

Bruder will be joined in conversation by Margaret Talbot, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father’s Twentieth Century.

FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED

Registration does not guarantee admission. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A stand by line will form thirty minutes before the program.

The Program Room opens at 6 PM.

ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.