Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood

Peach starts you right in the middle of the action—in a massive shipyard outside Victoria, B.C.—and never leaves. "Opinions are less interesting to me than actions," she finally says, late in the book, and by that time you understand: she cares less about explaining how an experimental poet and arts administrator like her ended up with a Boilermakers Union card and two decades as an industrial welder under her belt than showing, with a graceful, straightforward, and often drily funny storytelling style, what it's like to learn a difficult trade and navigate a mostly-male workplace. It's a revelation.