Synopses & Reviews
For years, Teresa has passed from one job to the next, settling into long stretches of time, struggling to build her career in any field or unstick herself from an endless cycle of labor. The dreaded move from one gig to another is starting to feel unbearable. When a recruiter connects her with a contract position at AllOver, it appears to check all her prerequisites for a "good" job. It's a fintech corporation with progressive hiring policies and a social justice-minded mission statement. Their new service for premium members: a functional fleet of driverless cars. The future of transportation. As her new-hire orientation reveals, the distance between AllOver's claims and its actions is wide, but the lure of financial stability and a flexible schedule is enough to keep Teresa driving forward.
Joanne McNeil, who often reports on how the human experience intersects with labor and technology brings blazing compassion and criticism to Wrong Way, examining the treacherous gaps between the working and middle classes wrought by the age of AI. Within these divides, McNeil turns the unsaid into the unignorable, and captures the existential perils imposed by a nonstop, full-service gig economy.
Review
"McNeil (Lurking) portrays the ruthlessness of the gig economy in her intimate debut novel... McNeil skewers the company's facile corporate promises ("We bridge humanity and enterprise; we shape the digital economy to fit neighborhood-centric needs"), and the satire is all the more cutting when contrasted with the all-too-human story of Teresa. A warm beating heart drives this smart and timely tale." Publishers Weekly
Review
"In her smart debut novel, McNeil uses one woman's story to explore the complicated relationship between technology and labor... By creating a predicament for her protagonist that could soon resemble ones we'll face, McNeil creates a compelling examination of work and our relationship to it." Booklist
About the Author
Joanne McNeil was the inaugural winner of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation's Arts Writing Award for an emerging writer. She has been a resident at Eyebeam, a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow, and an instructor at the School for Poetic Computation.
Joanne is the author of Lurking: How a Person Became a User.