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by Sonya Huber (Author)
"The 20 essays . . . pack a punch--not the sort that gives you an immediate bruise, but one that leaves you strangely sore for days . . ." --Kerry Cardoza, Chicago Reader
New Lenox, Illinois, is a small town deep in the corn grid of the Midwest, where it runs up against the grid of south Chicagoland, a placeless location marked by geographical flatness and dwindling industry. It's also where Sonya Huber grew up, and in the twenty essays collected here, she lovingly explores the ways New Lenox--and the Midwest more generally--has come to define her life. Here, you'll find portraits of Huber's parents as they tirelessly run a small business, homages to the Gen-X joys of wearing flannel, secret insights about being a Pizza Hut waitress, and odes to the ecstasy of blasting classic rock as your car hurls along I-80. Whether she's writing about All in the Family, detailing the region's influence on David Foster Wallace, or exploring the poetry embedded in a can of Miller High Life, her vision is astute and her prose convincing.
Sometimes experimental and always inventive, Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook takes seriously Chicagoland's farthest reaches--gritty, sweeping, a region full of its own distinct feelings of "almostness"--and transforms them into a map of the heart, a ramshackle territory marked by memory, family, regret, determination, and wonderment.
"A must read" --Library Journal
"Huber is a masterful essayist" --Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life
"Sonya Huber has written a glorious midwestern road trip for the personal essay set." --Barrie Jean Borich, author of Apocalypse Darling, Body Geographic, and My Lesbian Husband
