Appreciating the Grunt Work: A Book List
8 favorite novels that explore menial jobs
I don’t want to be a waitress forever. In fact, this is the year I’m hoping my finances will finally allow me to leave the industry altogether. But as I look back on all the jobs I’ve had, I can’t help but think about the grunt work, the jobs labeled menial or low status. I’ve had many of these types of jobs, and they are the ones that have fostered my writing life the most.
While I was beginning to build Write or Die in 2018, there was a stretch where I was waking up at 5 am to work at a smoothie bar. I’d leave that shift to nanny and then sometimes leave there to wait tables. I’d work on my business in the pockets of time in between or on the entire days off this flexible schedule allowed me. That is when I wrote too. Sometimes, I’d feel dumb for mashing all these part-time jobs together to make ends meet, especially since I was in my late twenties at the time. But I had tried the 9-5 route, and it didn’t work for me. I was miserable, and my writing, the thing that brings me so much happiness, my purpose (!), suffered as a result.
I think because I’ve been on this pursuit for so long—how to make money doing something I don’t absolutely hate, that isn’t soul-sucking, while balancing my writing and entrepreneurial goals, I can’t help but gravitate towards novels that emphasize work. I reach for the books about lower-class living and making shit money and folks living in trailer parks before I grab the books about rich people and mansions and the glamour of wealth. Even in nonfiction, I love reading about how people make money and their journeys from unhappy employees to published writers or business owners. Money is on my mind a lot. And it’s one of the main desires of my protagonist in the novel I’m working on. She’s worked her way up from diner waitress to working in fine dining in a country club, and the money is one of the main influences that drives her. That makes her do some crazy things.
While I’ve been working on this novel for the past three years, I’ve come across some novels that have influenced my work and, thankfully, talked about the grunt work, the low-status pay, the jobs that we all don’t want to do but sometimes we have to make ends meet. Here are a few of my recent favorites.
Deliver Me by Elle Nash
“The air outside is normally swollen with blood and animal waste but today it smells earthy, like wild grass and fresh milk.”
Job: Poultry processor in a meatpacking facility
Talk about a shit job. Elle Nash’s protagonist, Dee-Dee, snips chicken meat into bloodless tenders all day in a meat packing plant that kills 40,000 chickens per shift. The scenes of Dee-Dee at work are gruesome and sometimes nauseating as she works through the discomfort and monotony of working on the fast-paced line. Her boss and co-workers are brutal; everyone is fixated on the quota of dead and processed chickens they must meet.
This novel stuck with me in a number of ways (it was probably my favorite read of 2023), but Elle’s choice to weave Dee-Dee’s job into the narrative added an extra layer of intrigue to an already thrilling plot.
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
“You are hoping to master the experience. The pain is what we know. It’s our barometer of reality. We never trust pleasure.”
Job: Waitress
I’ve talked about Sweetbitter a few times before. It has been one of those roadmap books for me when writing my own novel. But since it was one of the first literary books to gain huge popularity talking about the service industry, I have to include it here again. Stephanie brings us through the grueling process of starting a new job, particularly in this industry known for its clickiness, and highlights what it's like to work your way up from newbie to the industry status.
Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce
“If I were to advise someone going into the service industry, my second suggestion after Don’t would be Walk through the place and looks for the tables furthest from the kitchen. You’ll probably be stuck there for a couple of months. Imagine walking from wherever that is all the way to the kitchen for extra salad dressing. Now imagine it eighteen more times, and that’s just for one table. You may think you’ll be waiting tables but really your job is to walk fast in a circle for six to eight hours every day. Don’t work somewhere with stairs, steps, ramps, outdoor setting, small water glasses or kids’ menus.”
Job: Waitress
My friend Shelby recommended this novel to me, and then my friend Barrie told me it was one of her absolute favorites. It entirely revolves around working in the service industry. We follow Marie, who waits tables at an upscale Dallas steakhouse. This is a devastating and often times brutal novel as Marie’s self-destructive impulses lead her to lose herself in the highs that often coincide within this industry—lots of drugs and sex with co-workers—and Merritt doesn’t hold back. But it's an honest portrayal of what working in a toxic restaurant and kitchen environment can look like, and I love that Merritt was brave enough to go there.
Bewilderness by Karen Tucker
“Of the many skills I learned from the old hustle, the ability to figure out what someone wants has been the most valuable. Once you understand that, it’s not so hard to let them have it.”
Job: Bartender
Bewilderment is another heartbreaker, following Irene and Luce’s friendship that starts during a shift at the pool hall where they both sling beer pitchers. The heart of the novel is about addiction, both to drugs and to a person, but it also highlights the grit of working in a dive bar. Between belligerent patrons, creepy men who follow them to the bathroom, and arrogant smooth talkers, the girls navigate their way with each other’s help as they struggle to feed their habits and make ends meet.
Pretend Im Dead by Jen Beagin
“For as long as she could remember, she’d had a death wish, which she pictured as a rope permanently tied around her ankle. The rope was often slack and inanimate, trailing along behind her or sitting in a loose pile at her feet, but occasionally it came alive with its own single-minded purpose.”
Job: House cleaner
Pretend I’m Not Dead follows Mona as she moves to Taos, New Mexico in search of a fresh start after a disastrous relationship with a junkie that ends much to her heartbreak. In New Mexico, she makes flyers advertising her house cleaning skills, and soon she gathers a steady list of clients. This novel is wildly funny and full of heart as Mona scrubs her way into the lives of those who have much more than her. Cleaning houses are grueling work, one that those in the profession don’t nearly get enough credit for, in my opinion, and I loved Jen’s portrayal in the strange yet loveable Mona.
Brass by Xhenet Aliu
“And when the last of the brass mills locked up their doors and hauled ass out of town once and for all, they left me with a change jar that hadn’t even gotten me close to the wicked coupe that was going to drive me out of Waterbury so fast I wouldn't even bother to burn the skid marks that would mark my goodbye.
What I got instead was a job at the Betsy Ross Diner, slinging poutine fries and spanakopita to third-shifters headed to or coming back from jobs as hospital guards, machinists, small-time drug deals.”
Job: Waitress
This book is an obsession of mine. I’ve read it multiple times, and it’s another one that has been pivotal to my growth as a writer. Xhenet is a superstar in my eyes when it comes to writing voice. Brass, which was longlisted for the First Novel Prize in 2018, deserves this award and more for its depictions of working class America and working for everything you’ve got. Elise waits tables at the Betsey Ross Diner in hopes that the shit tips she makes each shift will add up to a new life. Until she meets Bashkim, one of the Albanian cooks in the kitchen, who she falls for as swiftly as she ends up pregnant. While it’s very much a mother-daughter novel, Xhenet’s scenes that take place in the diner are some of my favorites, full of energy, grease, and heart.
Bad Marie by Marcy Dermanksy
“Though Marie was paid to take care of Caitlin, she often felt that Caitlin was looking after her. Marie always felt guilty for the things she did wrong. Every day there was some small new mistake to make, but so far, there had been no consequences.”
Job: Nanny
This is my favorite novel from Marcy, and I’ve read it several times. Marie is 30, beautiful, voluptuous, and fresh out of jail for an armed robbery and accessory to murder character. She can only find employment through an old friend, Ellen, who hires Marie as a housekeeper and nanny to her young daughter, Caitlin. The problem is that Marie is in love with Ellen’s husband, and before she really knows what she is doing, she runs away to Paris with both Ellen’s husband and daughter. This whole nanny on the run situation is wildly entertaining. But it’s also a novel about motherhood, caregiving, and being responsible for a child. A job that feels so big and important but is another one that can be very underpaid and labor intensive.
Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
“I think some people are just born broken. I think about life as one big Laundromat and some people just have one little bag to do—it’ll only take them a quick cycle to get through—but others, they have bags and bags of it, and it’s just so much that it’s overwhelming to even think about starting. Is there even enough laundry detergent to get everything clean?”
Job: pizza delivery
It's been a while since I read this, but I was immediately excited someone had written a story from the perspective of a girl delivering pizzas for a living. This is often regarded as a throwaway job, like being a gas attendant. A job that you should feel shame for working or not a “real job.” (Putting in quotes because what does that even really mean??)
In Pizza Girl, not only is our eighteen-year-old protagonist delivering pizza, but she’s pregnant, too. Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighborhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickled covered pizzas for her son's happiness. Another grunt job I loved reading about in fiction.
What books am I missing?! I’d love to know your favorites in the comments!
After years of being a certifiable grunt by day and creative by night, this spoke to me! I'm going to come back to this list next time I'm book shopping!
These all sound SO GOOD