The New York Times Book Review - Sasha Abramsky
It is a powerful story…As an exposé of a moral catastrophe, this is a vital piece of reportage. It stands alongside Gabriel Thompson's book on the undocumented, Working in the Shadows, and bears comparison to recent reports on the exploitation of foreign laborers with temporary work visas. The Boys in the Bunkhouse stands as a warning that too many people, in too many circumstances, are willing to take advantage of the vulnerable. They will do so simply to make a quick buck, and they will find ways to rationalize the indefensible.
From the Publisher
Gently, emphatically, and indelibly, Barry conveys a tale of unthinkable brutality. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Barry’s book can’t right all those wrongs, but it at least documents them eloquently, and in a more permanent way.” — Kansas City Star
“An extraordinary contribution to the literature of social injustice. . . . The Boys in the Bunkhouse surely will emerge as one of the landmark books of the year.” — Providence Journal
“The Boys in the Bunkhouse is not just a book about the victims but also a book that turns those victims into real men. Dan Barry has written them into history, as only a journalist could.” — Newsweek
“An important story about the horrors of slavery and exploitation that can happen to vulnerable people anywhere.” — The Atlantic
“Disturbing yet beautifully told...” — America Magazine
The story of these men gets the full telling it deserves in Dan Barry’s powerful, moving, and at times heartbreaking book, The Boys in the Bunkhouse.” — Commonweal Magazine
“Dan Barry gives dignity even to the darkest corners of the American experience. He is the closest thing we have to a contemporary Steinbeck.” — Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin
“Dan Barry represents the magic that is possible in journalism when there is a convergence between a great story and great talent.” — Gay Talese
“Hard-hitting journalism shot through with flourishes of the best literary nonfiction. . . . The Boys in the Bunkhouse is, ultimately, a hopeful story of the power of a few dogged individuals to make change.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“As an exposé of a moral catastrophe, this is a vital piece of reportage.” — New York Times Book Review
Praise for Bottom of the 33rd:
“What a book—an exquisite exercise in story-telling, democracy and myth-making that has, at its center, a great respect for the symphony of voices that make up America.” — Colum McCann
“A fascinating, beautifully told story... In the hands of Barry, a national correspondent for the New York Times, this marathon of duty, loyalty, misery and folly becomes a riveting narrative...The book feels like ‘Our Town’ on the diamond.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An astonishing tale that lyrically articulates baseball's inexorable grip on its players and fans, Bottom of the 33rd belongs among the best baseball books ever written.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
“[Dan] Barry does more than simply recount the inning-by-inning-by-inning box score. He delves beneath the surface, like an archaeologist piecing together the shards and fragments of a forgotten society, to reconstruct a time and a night that have become part of baseball lore.” — Associated Press
Commonweal Magazine
The story of these men gets the full telling it deserves in Dan Barry’s powerful, moving, and at times heartbreaking book, The Boys in the Bunkhouse.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Hard-hitting journalism shot through with flourishes of the best literary nonfiction. . . . The Boys in the Bunkhouse is, ultimately, a hopeful story of the power of a few dogged individuals to make change.
Newsweek
The Boys in the Bunkhouse is not just a book about the victims but also a book that turns those victims into real men. Dan Barry has written them into history, as only a journalist could.
America Magazine
Disturbing yet beautifully told...
Providence Journal
An extraordinary contribution to the literature of social injustice. . . . The Boys in the Bunkhouse surely will emerge as one of the landmark books of the year.
Gay Talese
Dan Barry represents the magic that is possible in journalism when there is a convergence between a great story and great talent.
Kansas City Star
Barry’s book can’t right all those wrongs, but it at least documents them eloquently, and in a more permanent way.
The Atlantic
An important story about the horrors of slavery and exploitation that can happen to vulnerable people anywhere.
Colum McCann
Dan Barry gives dignity even to the darkest corners of the American experience. He is the closest thing we have to a contemporary Steinbeck.
Associated Press
[Dan] Barry does more than simply recount the inning-by-inning-by-inning box score. He delves beneath the surface, like an archaeologist piecing together the shards and fragments of a forgotten society, to reconstruct a time and a night that have become part of baseball lore.
New York Times Book Review
As an exposé of a moral catastrophe, this is a vital piece of reportage.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
An astonishing tale that lyrically articulates baseball's inexorable grip on its players and fans, Bottom of the 33rd belongs among the best baseball books ever written.
Kansas City Star
Barry’s book can’t right all those wrongs, but it at least documents them eloquently, and in a more permanent way.
Newsweek
The Boys in the Bunkhouse is not just a book about the victims but also a book that turns those victims into real men. Dan Barry has written them into history, as only a journalist could.
Associated Press Staff
[Dan] Barry does more than simply recount the inning-by-inning-by-inning box score. He delves beneath the surface, like an archaeologist piecing together the shards and fragments of a forgotten society, to reconstruct a time and a night that have become part of baseball lore.
New York Times
A worthy companion to Roger Kahn’s classic Boys of Summer ...[Dan Barry] exploits the power of memory and nostalgia with literary grace and journalistic exactitude. He blends a vivid, moment-by-moment re-creation of the game with what happens to its participants in the next 30 years.
Los Angeles Times
A fascinating, beautifully told story... In the hands of Barry, a national correspondent for the New York Times, this marathon of duty, loyalty, misery and folly becomes a riveting narrative...The book feels like ‘Our Town’ on the diamond.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2016-03-14
A gripping indictment of society's treatment of "losers." In 1966, a pilot program at the Abilene State School in Texas moved six developmentally disabled men to a ranch run by T.H. Johnson, who agreed to teach the "boys," as he called them, basic agricultural skills. They would be paid a pittance and board at the ranch, saving the state money and providing Johnson with a source of very cheap labor. Award-winning New York Times writer and columnist Barry (Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game, 2012, etc.) rivetingly chronicles the lives of these men and 26 more who worked for the irascible Johnson at his turkey processing plant in Texas and, later, in Atalissa, Iowa. From 1974 until 2009, Johnson's workers, living in filthy, decrepit housing, were paid far below minimum wage, from which room and board were deducted; were denied medical and dental care; and were violently abused by their overseers. Every day, they caught, killed, and gutted turkeys, work, Barry writes, that was "hard…and repetitive, a bloody, filthy, feathery mess." Along the way, a social worker discovered the "slave-labor camp" and reported the "human-rights horror" to the Iowa Department of Social Services only to be told that the company's operation—a "for-profit business model with a paternalistic overlay of limited freedoms and routine discipline"—seemed legitimate. The townspeople of Atalissa liked the "boys," who sometimes came to town, marched in parades, and bought candy with their small allowances, and the men were proud to be workers; they didn't openly complain. But one man's sister, desperate over her brother's plight, caught the attention of a tenacious investigative reporter, whose exposé shocked the nation. Finally, social services sprang to action, and the men were extricated, cared for, and embraced by those who had long ignored them. Gently, empathetically, and indelibly, Barry conveys a tale of unthinkable brutality.
