Coming Up Short

"What does it mean to grow up today as a young, working-class adult? In Coming Up Short, Jennifer Silva illuminates the dramatic transition to adulthood for working-class men and women. Based on one hundred interviews with working-class people in two towns -- Lowell, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia -- Silva sheds light on their experience of heightened economic insecurity, deepening inequality, and uncertainty about marriage and family. Compelling and powerfully written, Coming Up Short focuses on those who are most vulnerable -- young, working-class people, including African Americans, women, and single parents -- and reveals, in very real terms, their fragile hold on the American Dream"--