99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses

Joe repairs homes. With each job, he enters somebody's private world. Revealing a life. Or changing it. Here's blue collar writing, finely crafted, about good hard work-and some bad work, too. Meet proud carpenters and working-class hippies. Meet clients who flirt, cheat, seduce, fight-and clients who warm your heart. Learn the taste of sewage, the jolt of a live wire. Drive to the emergency clinic with a wooden stake through your hand. Feel the satisfaction of work that is honest, simple, strong-sometimes perfect. "A house is alive. It breathes. It expands and contracts. It ages. Sometimes it falls sick, and then I'm a doctor of houses. I probe intimate cavities. I study the bones, the nerves, the flesh of an old house where generations of remodels have built upon themselves. The structure tells a story: tragedy, comedy, or heartwarming family drama as day-to-day life slowly, inexorably leaves an imprint over the attic, on the walls, under the sink-or in the crawlspace." -From 99 Jobs Ninety-nine stories that are gritty, funny, wise. And always deeply humane.