Cut Adrift – Families in Insecure Times

"Too often the statistics about rising insecurity crowd out the real-life stories of families struggling to adjust to new realities. With this deeply researched examination of families living in the nation's tech capital of Silicon Valley, Marianne Cooper reminds us why the statistics matter. She offers not only a wrenching journey into the lives of the insecure but a revealing framework for understanding the varied ways in which Americans are coping, or not, with increased financial risk and strain."--Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University, author of The Great Risk Shift and Winner-Take-All Politics.

"With great insight, Marianne Cooper shows us how Americans are coping in an era of heightened economic anxiety--with the wealthier seeking ever greater financial security and the poorer trying to accommodate ever greater precariousness. Such upscaling and downscaling explains much of the emotional reality behind the menacing economic conditions in modern America."--Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

"By providing a glimpse into the lives of families under economic pressure, Cooper enables us to see what happens when a nation fails to modernize its relationship to women and helps us understand what we need to do about it.."--Maria Shriver, mother, award-winning journalist and producer, founder of The Shriver Report, and former First Lady of California.

"Cut Adrift is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Cooper's study of families from different social classes shows how worries about financial security penetrate the rhythm of daily life in all of the families (albeit in different ways). The book has impressive ethnographic detail, clarity of the analysis, and originality. My students loved it. Highly recommended!"--Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania, President, American Sociological Association

"Talking with moms at soccer matches, accompanying anxious shoppers at the mall, listening to news of a pink slip, Marianne Cooper takes an emotion-sensing stethoscope to the hearts of parents--from richest to poorest--in Silicon Valley, California. In an age of insecurity, Cooper finds that each family assigns a 'designated worrier' to manage anxiety about drawing to--or going over--the financial edge. This is a brilliant book and a must-read."--Arlie Hochschild, author of The Second Shift, The Outsourced Self, and So How's the Family? and Other Essays.

"An important and insightful examination of family life during an economic downturn."--Vicki Smith, University of California, Davis, author of Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy

"A poignant, powerful story of how families are coping with rampant economic insecurity."--Allison Pugh, University of Virginia, author of Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture