Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story.
I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com:
Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM plant that has sustained their town and their middle class lives closes and they suddenly must reinvent themselves while facing near-impossible choices and a fracturing community, to Priscilla Painton at Simon & Schuster, in a pre-empt, by Susan Rabiner and Sydelle Kramer of Susan Rabiner Literary Agency.
(Hat tip to Slushpile for the information.)
Film-maker Brad Lichtenstein also looked at Janesville from the view of families affected by the GM plant’s closing in As Goes Janesville. (See, about that documentary, What a Film About Janesville Really Says.)
What’s sure to be true about Goldstein’s perspective (considering her earlier work) is that it will be free of the self-promotion and self-justification so common among local politicians, developers, and the reporters who flack for them.
That’s one reason that a few Janesvillians are uncomfortable about Goldstein’s upcoming book.
It’s also a reason for those serious about policy, owing to Goldstein’s independent perspective, to look forward to the book’s publication.