Cleanup on Aisle Five

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I got a job in a supermarket where my colleagues and I were paid poverty wages to do essential work. I came away from the experience humbled and determined to share what I had learned. In the tradition of bestselling behind-the scenes classics such as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, Cleanup on Aisle Five is a character-driven look at the modern supermarket. It unpacks what works and what doesn’t and unveils the corporate interests that control everything from labor conditions in stores to how we shop for food.

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.

A riveting, anecdotal report from the front lines of retail.

A striking, you-are-there account of the struggle to survive – and survive on—a low wage job in today’s America. A notable entry in the canon of working-class literature.

As insightful as it is fun to read, you'll never look at the checkout line the same way again.

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.

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.