My most frequent Austin experience is finding a small quirky business that I later learn is actually a slightly evil hellhole for its employees. The reasons are myriad: long hours for diminutive paychecks; the owners being Scientologists; no healthcare (relatable!); and always this oppressive feeling that no one in the city cares they’re being exploited. At times, Austin is a sympathetic ear you later learn was stuffed with cotton – the illusion of being heard.
This is the setting we’re dropped into at the start of author Jules Wernersbach’s debut novel Work to Do: a dark and stormy night in 2019, during which a grocery co-op is flooded by customers, wind gusts, and retail discord. Their first fictional effort after two Texas-based nonfiction publications (The Swimming Holes of Texas, Vegan Survival Guide to Austin), Wernersbach splits this tale into three perspectives. A familiar situation to anyone who’s ever worn a name tag and stocked endcaps, only two of the players are in-store during the storm: manager Roz, who longs for GM glory almost as much as she longs for her ex-wife, and longtime jack-of-all-positions, master-of-no-equivalent-pay Randy. Off in Bastrop is owner Eleanor, whose aluminum fist is nonetheless present as she dictates all of Roz’s actions through texts. That includes, of course, demanding the store stay open even when all signs point to disaster.
Thus, the dynamic of the next 245 pages is laid out. Roz desires a place among the semi-powerful with a somewhat naive idea of making things “better,” while only digging a bigger trench for herself in a war against her fellow workers. Those workers, led with shaky solidarity by a soon-to-be homeless Randy, have been meeting at the period-accurate Spider House Ballroom – now 29th Street Ballroom, separated from the coffeehouse the workers congregate at, now called Tweedy’s – in the pursuit of filing for a union contract. See, the Guadalupe Street Co-op isn’t co-operated by its workers, but is co-owned by the customers and a board of investors that includes Eleanor’s ex-wife, with whom she started the business. Other than themes of labor rights organizing, one thing Work to Do is plum full of is ex-wives and ex-girlfriends.
Perhaps this is a metaphor for how without negotiating an equitable work relationship, none of the characters can find that peace in their personal lives. This lingering person-to-person discomfort throughout Work to Do isn’t uncalled for, as all three point-of-view characters are defined by their time spent in the co-op. What little space they allow for outside activity – a show at Stubb’s, a lunch at Torchy’s, drinks at Vino Vino – cannot escape the shadow of their troubles at work. Always, there are union emails to read, shelves to restock, and customers wielding their ability to shop at Central Market like a box cutter ready to slice these people to pieces.
The most powerful element of Work to Do is that it does not advocate giving up the fight.
Wernersbach does an incredible job creating and interrogating how these characters find themselves mired in Austin’s weird ethos of supporting local businesses without actually supporting their employees. They slowly fill this powder keg through page after page of uncomfortable conversations, believable foot-in-mouth dialogue, and intensely felt struggles, so when the explosion finally hits, there’s wonderful narrative satisfaction. The journey is a tough read though, I admit. The sunny days before the clouds are never truly shown, only mentioned in brief asides often soaked still by darker memories. Every customer given a line of dialogue is unpleasant, which isn’t helped by how grievously unpleasant the protagonists are as well.
(Barring Randy, but I’m always a little softer on a they/them who has “good” cargo shorts saved for special occasions.)
While the quick, sharp prose Wernersbach adopts helps carry the action along, it does little to allow breathing room. In a way, it mirrors how the novel’s protagonists are given no space for introspection by the invisible hand of labor squeezed around them. And yet, when they do introspect, the time is spent justifying their unwavering dedication to work. A vicious cycle, some might say, that can only be broken by collective action and a well-timed storm.
What I find the most powerful element of Work to Do is that it does not advocate giving up the fight. Austin is a place many people leave after its more corrosive elements, well, corrode their spirits, but resolving those issues doesn’t happen if no one sticks around. If we wanna keep our popcorn tofu sellers ethical, then Wernersbach’s novel argues we got a lot of Work to Do – and it has to be done together.
Work to Do
by Jules Wernersbach
University of Iowa Press
This article appears in May 8 • 2026.
