“I’d originally met Linda while researching a magazine story on a growing subculture of American nomads, folks who live full-time on the road. Like Linda, many of these wandering souls were trying to escape an economic paradox: the collision of rising rents and flat wages, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.” 

Bruder discloses how she first Linda and the other nomads she speaks to throughout Nomadland. The “economic paradox” that Bruder mentions here is the financial context that has forced many of her subjects to continue working past retirement age and live outside of traditional housing. She introduces this paradox early on to give background information on how and why people like Linda choose to become van dwellers.

“How does a hardworking sixty-four-year-old woman end up without a house or a permanent place to stay, relying on unpredictable low-wage work to survive? Living in a mile-high alpine wilderness, with intermittent snow and maybe mountain lions, in a tiny trailer, scrubbing toilets at the mercy of employers who, on a whim, could cut her hours or even fire her? What did the future look like for someone like that?” 

These questions provide the central tensions Bruder seeks to reconcile throughout the book. Linda’s story gives the book its stakes and narrative arc. Both Bruder and the reader become invested in Linda’s well-being as well as her dream to build her own Earthship.

“Linda wondered, not for the first time, how anybody could afford to grow old.” 

Linda’s story is one that is not wholly unique, particularly for many formerly middle-class and working-class Americans. The question of who can retire is one that is tied up in the history of American social safety nets, the disappearance of pensions, and the evaporation of many Americans’ savings during the Great Recession. Retirement, once considered something to rely upon, is no longer an option for many van dwellers like Linda, forcing them to seek alternative work and housing off the grid.