Trash!

Plt;bPgt;A Montreal garbagemanP#39;s sharp and funny memoir/exposP#233;, in which he attempts to convince people to Pquot;stop imagining that your garbage magically disappearsPquot; . . .Plt;/bPgt;

Plt;bPgt;P#8220;Raffish and spirited . . . a nonconformist cri de coeur . . . Usually, comparisons to Bourdain are fatuous. This time itP#8217;s accurate . . . ItP#8217;s been a long time since IP#8217;ve read so good and rowdy a memoir about blue-collar work.P#8221;Plt;iPgt; P#8212; Plt;/iPgt;Dwight Garner,Plt;iPgt; The New York TimesPlt;/iPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;AN INDIE BESTSELLERPlt;brPgt; Plt;brPgt;A Montreal garbagemanP#39;s sharp and funny memoir/exposP#233;, in which he attempts to convince people to Pquot;stop imagining that your garbage magically disappearsPquot; . . .Plt;/bPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;This fascinating no-bullshit account of twenty years in waste management paints a vivid portrait of the heroic labor, anarchic spirit, and violent conditions of the people who keep our cities clean.Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;ParP#233;-PoupartP#8217;s story is atypical: he started working as a garbageman to pay for school, and after earning graduate degrees and working in more P#8220;respectableP#8221; fields, he is still on a truck P#8212; out of love for the physical rush, for his rough-and-tumble colleagues, and for an honesty and freedom that no other job has yet given him.Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;Includes eight black and white photographs of the author on the job. Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;His sociology background informs his inquiry into our collective wastefulness and individual failure to confront the trash we produce. Every abstract observation comes with hilarious and hair-raising stories from the collection route to his days off spent hunting down furniture and toys for family and friends, as a committed freegan.Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;iPgt;Trash!Plt;/iPgt; P#8212; the French edition of which is a runaway bestseller in Canada P#8212; explains and questions efforts to P#8220;clean upP#8221; a business with longstanding conventions of its own, a last bastion of well-paid employment for people who cannot fit in anywhere else.Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;Aligned with great books about work from Zola to Orwell to Lucia Berlin, and in dialogue with societal critiques like Plt;iPgt;How To Do Nothing, Trash!Plt;/iPgt; will change how you think about your waste and the people who handle it.