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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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THE LAST MILE
A chronicle of a very eventful year in Steve Grant's life as a postal carrier and how this led to a journey that opened his life to a sense of community, peace, and pride.
In the spring of 2020, Steve Grant lost his job as a consumer psychologist. At the time, he was the chief strategist for a marketing consultancy where he made over two hundred thousand dollars a year, flying off to LA and New York. When the lockdowns started in March 2020, Steve lost his job with no severance or other job opportunities in sight. Needing to support his family and pay for the home they lived in, Steve signed on to be a postman in the rural southwestern Virginian part of the Appalachian mountains. At first just a job that brought in some income, Steve gradually learned a great deal about work, class, geography and identity, about the role of government and community in our lives, and about ourselves.
Steve learned that he had the determination to work hard, to be prepared for anything on his route, and to connect with the everyday people he came into contact with. The Last Mile recounts his journey where he traveled with a nylon recovery strap in his truck's toolbox in case he had to help haul other trucks out of a ditch on the road. He was attacked by dogs, worked sometimes 12, 13 and 14 hours at a time, and experienced a cathartic peace in the solitude of the mountains. The book gives readers a behind-the-scenes adventure of what it means to deliver the mail - through heat, cold, rain, snow, rogue dogs, tsunamis of parcels, economic anxiety, the white-blue collar divide.
For one year, Steve got to be a different version of himself; someone who delivered the mail to places in the middle of nowhere. A government worker who delivered birthday cards and heart medication, who jump-started customer's cars and carried chicken feed down to their coops. He was someone to whom folks gave coffee, cookies, and tomatoes, because he went the last mile - and because he never took a parcel back to the shop. It was a year that changed him in profound ways and instilled a sense of community and pride in his life.
Steve learned that he had the determination to work hard, to be prepared for anything on his route, and to connect with the everyday people he came into contact with. The Last Mile recounts his journey where he traveled with a nylon recovery strap in his truck's toolbox in case he had to help haul other trucks out of a ditch on the road. He was attacked by dogs, worked sometimes 12, 13 and 14 hours at a time, and experienced a cathartic peace in the solitude of the mountains. The book gives readers a behind-the-scenes adventure of what it means to deliver the mail - through heat, cold, rain, snow, rogue dogs, tsunamis of parcels, economic anxiety, the white-blue collar divide.
For one year, Steve got to be a different version of himself; someone who delivered the mail to places in the middle of nowhere. A government worker who delivered birthday cards and heart medication, who jump-started customer's cars and carried chicken feed down to their coops. He was someone to whom folks gave coffee, cookies, and tomatoes, because he went the last mile - and because he never took a parcel back to the shop. It was a year that changed him in profound ways and instilled a sense of community and pride in his life.
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Book
Published by Simon & Schuster |