Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

by Jessica Bruder

Linda had discovered CheapRVLiving.com, the creation of a former Safeway shelf stocker from Alaska named Bob Wells.

He urged readers to eschew traditional homes and apartments in favor of what some nomads call “wheel estate”: a van, car, or RV.

The key was “boondocking”: going off the grid rather than relying on the kind of hookups for water, sewage, and electricity that come with a paid spot in an RV park.

Rebecca Solnit points out in her book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, people not only buck up in times of crisis, but do so with a “startling, sharp joy.”