A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor

From a leading public health expert and physician, and in the style of Studs Terkel's Working, comes an eye-opening look at what it’s like to have to work physically hard for your money in America . . .

A Living is a vivid portrait of the working lives of the patients who visit Dr. Michael Stein, a primary care doctor in urban America. What makes his patients unique is that they, by and large, do demanding manual labor. Very few have the luxury of working remotely, or seated.  

Inspired by Studs Terkel’s classic Working, Stein produces an eye-opening look at what it’s like to have to work long hours at physical jobs for a paycheck in America. A Living is composed of vignettes, snap shots of people’s working lives, the dramas, disappointments and frustrations workers have with their colleagues, family co-workers, and supervisors.

And yet it also captures the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, the opportunities for initiative and self-expression that come from doing intricate work with one’s hands. Work gives Stein’s patients a sense of identity and a social environment to thrive in.

Ultimately, A Living is an extraordinarily powerful and poetic tableaux of working-class America at this moment when manual labor may be the final refuge in the new era of AI.

MICHAEL STEIN, MD, is a physician and health policy researcher. He currently serves as the Chair and Professor of Health Law, Policy & Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. Prior to his appointment at Boston University, he served as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Behavioral Medicine and Addiction Research at Brown University. He has published 13 books and over 400 scientific journal articles, as well as essays and columns in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and elsewhere.