Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

by Jessica Bruder

While many of the articles he published were purely pragmatic, Bob also dabbled in philosophy. He posted inspirational quotes from a grab bag of thinkers, from Braveheart and Dale Carnegie to Kahlil Gibran, Hellen Keller, Henry David Thoreau, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Pairing this borrowed rhetoric with personal existential musings, Bob suggested that a pared-down and peripatetic lifestyle could go far beyond meeting basic needs, becoming a portal to loftier aspirations: freedom, self-actualization, and adventure. To mainstream Americans this kind of transience may suggest a modern-day version of The Grapes of Wrath. But it’s worth noting a critical distinction. For the nomadic Dust Bowl–era refugees who were once snubbed as “Okies,” self-worth meant keeping alive the embers of one precious hope: that someday the status quo would return, moving them back into traditional housing, restoring at least an iota of stability. Along with many of the wayfarers he came to inspire, Bob saw things differently. He envisioned a future where economic and environmental upheavals had become the new American normal. For this reason, he didn’t package nomadic living as a quick fix, something to tide folks over until society had stabilized, at which point they could reintegrate with the mainstream. Rather he aspired to create a wandering tribe whose members could operate outside of—or even transcend—the fraying social order: a parallel world on wheels.