There is a great cross-section of Australians here, blue- and white-collar - construction workers and academics, street dwellers and suburbanites, clerks and coal miners, single mothers and people judged too old at fifty. As always, the stories -sensitively edited- are told in the words of working people. They are angry or accepting, full of fight or resigned, suicidal or hopeful. They can laugh too. The book has been ten years in the making. The author travelled throughout Australia, recording the experiences and opinions, hopes, fears and dreams of more than two hundred people.