Which Side Are You On?
by Thomas Geoghegan
Old Book of the Week , January 9, 2018
Phinney Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back
If organized labor was flat on its back when Geoghegan, a middle-aged Chicago labor lawyer, wrote this fantastic, funny book back in 1991, imagine where it is now. Geoghegan (who is still a Chicago labor lawyer) wouldn't be surprised at all: he's spent his whole career swimming against a relentless tide. His memoir reads like one of Camus's existential fables, if Camus was a wine-sipping, Harvard-educated yuppie who wrote like some combination of Mike Royko and early Jay McInerney about hard-hats being robbed of their pensions. It's been a personal favorite of mine since it came out, and it reads as well, and as relevantly, as ever.
If organized labor was flat on its back when Geoghegan, a middle-aged Chicago labor lawyer, wrote this fantastic, funny book back in 1991, imagine where it is now. Geoghegan (who is still a Chicago labor lawyer) wouldn't be surprised at all: he's spent his whole career swimming against a relentless tide. His memoir reads like one of Camus's existential fables, if Camus was a wine-sipping, Harvard-educated yuppie who wrote like some combination of Mike Royko and early Jay McInerney about hard-hats being robbed of their pensions. It's been a personal favorite of mine since it came out, and it reads as well, and as relevantly, as ever.
— Tom
Which Side Are You On? was reviewed in Newsletter #168 on January 9, 2018. For more like this, and other bookish news, sign up for the newsletter .
Swipe for Next
Press ← or → for next