99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses

Joe Cottonwood repairs homes. With each job, he enters somebody’s private world. Revealing a life. Or changing it. Joe has worked as a carpenter, plumber, and electrician for most of his life. Here’s blue collar writing, finely crafted, about good hard work—and some bad work, too. Ninety-nine stories that are gritty, funny, wise. And always deeply humane. More

Ninety-nine stories that are gritty, funny, wise. And always deeply humane.

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.

Joe Cottonwood has worked as a carpenter, plumber, and electrician for most of his life. He is the author of nine published novels. This is his first work of nonfiction.

“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