Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook

Huber’s 20 engaging essays describe how she dodged the industrial assembly line work of the Midwest “into the alphabet.” Now an associate professor of English at Fairfield University in Connecticut, the author (Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto) takes readers through her 1980s childhood and teenage years in small-town, rural “Chicagoland,” her anarchist days and labor rights protests, and her careers in social work and writing. The essays are dotted with reminders of the Midwest: boxed mac & cheese, fries from the freezer, corn, and Hamburger Helper. “Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beers” is a loving essay crediting Huber’s tough, hard-working father with instilling her Midwestern work ethic. “How To Disappear at Pizza Hut” describes Huber’s experience as a teenage server at the local pizza place. “The Third Eye of the Oyster” examines Huber’s love of walking, while “Land of Infinite David” pays homage to Illinois, “land of David Foster Wallace.”