Dimensions
167 x 229 x 30mm
In a literary tour de force, prize-winning author Dan Barry chronicles the lives of 32 mentally disabled men who labored for decades in a turkey-processing plant in small-town Iowa, and the extraordinary advocates who worked tirelessly to free them. In the winter of 2009, Natalie Neel-McGlaughlin, a social worker with the Iowa Department of Human Services, received an anonymous tip: A couple dozen disabled men. All from Texas. Living in an old, boarded-up schoolhouse in the farm town of Atalissa. For decades. Working in a meat-processing plant, eviscerating turkeys. For decades. Financially exploited. For decades. She wasn't the first Iowa state social worker to investigate the plant - Ed George had filed a report on the exact same case in 1974. And yet, what Natalie found at the turkey-processing plant in Atalissa was much the same as it had been almost 35 years previously. In a work of hauntingly detailed reportage, Dan Barry uncovers how and why these men came to live in the schoolhouse, woefully underpaid, physically and emotionally abused, and nearly forgotten for so many years. Through exhaustive interviews, he dives deeply into the lives and testimonies of the 32 men, recording their memories and suffering, their small moments of joy and persistent hopefulness for better times ahead. Barry explores, too, how state social workers and local reporters doggedly stayed on the case years after others had moved on, and how a determined labor lawyer helped free the men and hold the accountable parties responsible for their profound and chronic negligence. In a dramatic and now seminal court case, these men who had been invisible were heard at last, spurring advocates to improve working conditions and pay for people living with disabilities. The Boys in the Bunkhouse is inspired storytelling, and its social impact will be remembered for years to come.
