Summary and Reviews of Glass House by Brian Alexander

Glass House by Brian Alexander

Glass House

The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town

by Brian Alexander
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Feb 14, 2017, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2018, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

In 1947, Forbes magazine declared Lancaster, Ohio the epitome of the all-American town. Today it is damaged, discouraged, and fighting for its future.

In Glass House, journalist Brian Alexander uses the story of one town to show how seeds sown 35 years ago have sprouted to give us Trumpism, inequality, and an eroding national cohesion.

The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st Century, and wrecked the company. We follow CEO Sam Solomon, an African-American leading the nearly all-white town's biggest private employer, as he tries to rescue the company from the New York private equity firm that hired him. Meanwhile, Alexander goes behind the scenes, entwined with the lives of residents as they wrestle with heroin, politics, high-interest lenders, low wage jobs, technology, and the new demands of American life: people like Brian Gossett, the fourth generation to work at Anchor Hocking; Joe Piccolo, first-time director of the annual music festival who discovers the town relies on him, and it, for salvation; Jason Roach, who police believed may have been Lancaster's biggest drug dealer; and Eric Brown, a local football hero-turned-cop who comes to realize that he can never arrest Lancaster's real problems.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Everything is connected, however, as Alexander repeatedly reinforces, which is why Glass House should be essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of American workers – regardless of what town we call home...continued

Full Review Members Only (581 words)

(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



The Art of Glassmaking

Glass BlowingAt one point in Glass House, Brian Alexander describes his childhood experience of peering into one of the glass manufacturing plants in his home town: "Nuns had spent years engraving images of hell on my imagination. The flames shooting out of the squat stack on the roof, the white-red glow of the furnace inside, the gray shadows of the men hoisting their gatherers to collect glass from the inferno sure looked like hell." Even in the twenty-first century, glassmaking is a hot and sometimes dangerous occupation, one with a history that is thousands of years old.

Mesopotamia GlassAccording to a (scientifically dubious) account by the Roman historian Pliny, glassmaking was discovered accidentally, when Phoenician sailors heated their cooking pots and ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Glass House, try these:

  • Death in Mud Lick jacket

    Death in Mud Lick

    by Eric Eyre

    Published 2021

    About this book

    From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win the prize in the investigative reporting category, an urgent, riveting, and heartbreaking investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns, decimating communities.

  • Hillbilly Elegy jacket

    Hillbilly Elegy

    by J.D. Vance

    Published 2018

    About this book

    #1 New York Times Bestseller, named by the Times as one of the "6 books to help understand Trump's win"

We have 5 read-alikes for Glass House, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Brian Alexander
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Death at the Sign of the Rook
    by Kate Atkinson
    Jackson Brodie returns in a gripping new mystery! Welcome to Rook Hall. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    This Here Is Love
    by Princess Joy L. Perry

    Three people—two enslaved, one indentured—struggle to overcome the limits and labels of their painful shared pasts.

  • Book Jacket

    Too Old for This
    by Samantha Downing

    A retired killer's secret is at risk when a visitor arrives—her only option? Another murder.

  • Book Jacket

    A Club of One's Own
    by BookBrowse

    Dreaming of starting or reviving a book club? A Club of One’s Own is the essential guide to doing it right.

  • Book Jacket

    The Magician of Tiger Castle
    by Louis Sachar

    The author of Holes returns with a magical adult debut about forbidden love and a kingdom on the brink of collapse.

Win This Book
Win All the Men I've Loved Again

All the Men I've Loved Again by Christine Pride

Christine Pride's solo debut explores a woman's love triangle in her 20s that unexpectedly resurfaces in her 40s.

Enter

Book
Trivia

  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

I N R S

and be entered to win..