An urgent proclamation of what life is like for American women without the security of a financial safety netIndie icon Michelle Tea–whose memoir The Chelsea Whistle details her own working-class roots in gritty Chelsea, Massachusetts–shares these fierce, honest, tender essays written by women who can’t go home to the suburbs when ends don’t meet. When jobs are scarce and the money has dwindled, these writers have nowhere to go but below the poverty line. The writers offer their different stories not for sympathy or sadness, but an unvarnished portrait of how it was, is, and will be for generations of women growing up working class in America.

These wide-ranging essays cover everything from selling blood for grocery money to the culture shock of “jumping” class. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Bee Lavender, Eileen Myles, and Daisy Hernandez.