Adelle Waldman’s novel Help Wanted might be called “middle class white woman forced to work real job.”  That was my first impression at least; but in all seriousness, the book grew on me.  You see, Waldman did some field research to go work the graveyard shift in a logistics unit unloading delivery trucks and delivering boxes and stocking the shelves of a big box retail store.   

The novel is set in the dreary town Potterstown, NY, where a motley crue of low wage workers bond as a group in their mutual hatred of their manager, Meredith.  They conspire to get rid of her by praising her to the hilt to the regional bosses, in hopes that she’ll get a promotion and hence get out of their face. 

The low stakes of the plot was kind of amusing to me, and nonetheless I found myself emotionally invested in who might get a promotion in the “movement” group. 

What’s more, it’s a light, easy read, while at the same time the writing has a  psychological sophistication. At times, however, political correctness seeped into how the different characters were portrayed. 

Here’s what I mean by that: Ruby is a middle aged African American employee at Town Square, who aspired to get her GED but is basically illiterate.  This is not the usual flattering depiction of African Americans we get in film and literature.  But just when you thought Waldman was breaking the mold, she adds: 

“When she was a girl, she got lead poisoning. A lawyer who’d filed a suit on behalf of the residents of a building Ruby had lived in when she was little said this was likely the reason some things were hard for her” (196).  

How convenient! So typical of modern novels (and perhaps typical of female novelists I’m starting to suspect) the characters who are people of color are given fawning descriptions, they have literally no faults, or if they do, they are explained as being the fault of forces outside of the characters.  Take Val, the lesbian worker in logistics who is happily married with a baby, and whose quirky disposition leads her to cover up t-shirts that display messages she associates with traditional America or conservatism.  Now that might just be a fact of the character, but it’s presented sympathetically, as something lovable.

Sometimes Waldman is so eager to put such characters in the best light that she ends up attributing thoughts to them which are much more likely to come from a affluent liberal white woman (AWFL) than anyone else.  Here’s how she describes Diego, an Afro-Hispanic from Belize with “limited English writing skills”: 

“And while Diego was pretty chill, not really a political guy, every once in a while he’s make a remark about structural racism and its relationship to economic inequality that caused Big Will to look at him with surprise” (260).   

I’m unpleasantly surprised by this because Waldman is a former journalist at Wall Street Journal, so I was hoping for a non-woke book, but alas. Indeed, a Waldman interview reveals that she’s a liberal and views the election of Trump as a traumatic, life-altering event. True to type, her novel is clever, but humorless, even though she purports it is supposed to be comedic.  

Thematically the novel explores the plight of the working class and those working menial jobs, a theme which is fleshed out satisfactorily. 

Help Wanted might be aimed to show the plight of the working class, which it does.  But it also shows the pettiness of working a menial job.  The backbiting, the disrespect, and the hopelessness.  

There is a clever exposition when we learn that each individual member of the movement wants to be a manager. 

However, the antagonist Meredith one would think has no redeeming qualities based on the movement workers’ grievances.  But predictably, when we finally get her perspective (the novel is in third person omniscient POV), we learn that she has her own problems and aspirations like the rest of the group.

Help Wanted is a decent novel, I give it a solid B.  Worth a read but not exactly a must read. 

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