Sidework

Sidework is a gorgeous and wrenching ode to the work we do out of necessity and the work we do out of love. Over the course of a single shift in a California diner, a homeless mother of four navigates a motley crew of co-workers and customers and one very haunted supply room. With razor-sharp wit the narrator recounts the loss of her family’s off-grid life in an intentional community and their search for a new home. Sasha Hom is an extraordinary chronicler of motherhood, work, grief, and what it means to live an ethical life. I loved this stunning, harrowing, and hilarious novella.

—Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise