“Work to Do” Book Discussion with Jules Wernersbach
Zippy, fresh, propulsive, and tender.... The best story about a co-op grocery store since that episode of Broad City. — Emma Copley Eisenberg.
Join us for a special book club—style discussion with author and Brooklyn bookstore founder Jules Wernersbach about their debut novel and Lofty Pigeon Staff Pick, Work to Do. Follow the workers of an Austin food co-op as they plan to unionize and revel in all the joy, messiness, and contradictions of the human condition that are revealed along the way.
Windsor Terrace Food Co-Op will provide light refreshments to snack on while we have an intimate discussion about the book with Jules. Come prepared to talk all things queerness, labor, love, and more with 10% off the book online with code BOOKCLUB or by mentioning the book club during checkout in-store.
About the book
When Eleanor founded Guadalupe Street Co-op in the early 1980s, she was in her mid-twenties and madly in love with her girlfriend, Meg. Together, they envisioned an idyllic grocery store owned by its workers and customers.
Forty years later, Guadalupe Street Co-op is an iconic Austin business with a loyal customer base, an antiquated business model, and a disgruntled staff. Roz, one of the store’s senior managers, is too caught up stalking her ex-wife online to notice that her girlfriend, Molly, is plotting with her coworkers to unionize. Roz also doesn’t see that Molly is not-so-secretly in a situationship with Randy, the dairy manager, leading their collective.
Unfolding over the course of a single week during Texas hurricane season, Work to Do pings between the co-op’s first year and the present day, as the unionization bid reaches fever pitch. The wind howls, the power goes out, and water creeps through the front door, as questions of who owns the grocery store and who has a right to its future are posed. And will the workers ever be paid enough to buy the organic groceries they shelve?
Time: 6:30 pm EST
Free!
