Rating: 
Summary: Engaging and informative
Review: Hilarious, charming, disarming, fun, poignant and all-around eye-opening and fascinating. Meet Alfred, the brick-layer's son from New Yawk. If your family had DINNER (with "prettified food") his had SUPPER ("meat and bones and gobs of carbohydrates"). If yours took you on "mind-expanding, Machu Picchu vacations," he went on "plotz-at-the-beach, two-week affairs in summer rentals." He tried to fit in. "I mean, I chased girls and played ball and lifted weights - the approved pastimes that keep you from getting beaten up in working-class New York." But it just wasn't working. He never liked hanging out on the corner weeknights, shooting the bull. He never wanted "to hunch over the engine of a Mustang, monkey with the pistons and drain the oil." He wanted to read. How fortunate for us that he also wanted to write. Yeah, yeah, Lubrano's got the experts in here. The ones who can - and do -- explain what's going on when blue-collar kids grow up and take white-collar jobs. Better still, Lubrano keeps it informative without letting them get carried away like upper-crust stiffs. He also introduces readers to about 100 other souls like himself, who, for ease of clarification, he defines as people who went to college and work with their minds instead of people who didn't and work with their hands. But as good as the rest of it is, what you really want to read this story for is Lubrano himself, as his blue-collar parents wrestle with his decision to - where did we go wrong? - leave home to go to college. As he fumbles ineptly -- "an uncouth pretender" - through various romantic liaisons with surgeon's daughters and the like, exaggerating his Brooklyn accent to reinforce a "perceived erotic primitivism" on their parts. He thinks he never fit in either world. He found out in college, as do other so-called "straddlers," that "there are parties going on to which they are not invited." But when they try to go home, that doesn't work too well either. This is the part that's not comic, that's not loveable: When Lubrano, now a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, went back to New York from Ohio to live and work, the narrow-mindedness of "my Brooklyn rose up again to disappoint and amaze me." The book is both serious and funny, educational and entertaining. It's part Studs Terkel, part Steve Martin. Lubrano has a great story to tell, and he tells it very well indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Would the real reviewer please stand up?
Review: I have not yet read this book, although I plan to. Coming from a working-class background, attending an elite law school, and practicing law lend me a keen awareness of the issues of class in American society, issues rarely acknowledged in the general discourse. Needless to say, this book covers an important and ignored issue in the United States. Having said that, may of the one star negative reviews seem like carbon copies from people who have never read the book (or perhaps any other book for that matter). If you have something real to offer to the discussion, please do. If you merely want to vent that the book fails to match your ideology, save it for your friends. As for sale rank, that is rather meaningless. I'm guessing that Homer's The Iliad, Locke's Two Treatises on Government, and Boethius' Consolation of Philospohy are ranked just a bit lower than, say, the latest Harry Potter fare or Danielle Steel flotsam.
Rating:
Summary: Class in America - the elephant in the living room
Review: I have to agree with what lots of other people have written - this book is one of the most affecting I've ever read. Not so much because of any special power or artistry in the writing, but because of an empathy that comes from Lubrano's pen for all of us who've grown up and who still live between classes in the supposedly classless society that is America. My parents grew up in dire poverty (from Newfoundland and Georgia respectively), and reacted against it by trying to "bleach" themselves - and me - to an impossible Ozzy & Harriet standard. They never lost many of those working-class values that Lubrano talks about, however, and so the pretenses of middle-class life always coexisted uncomfortably with their fundamental beliefs and experiences. Growing up, I rejected a lot of my upbringing and tried to blend in with what I saw as "sophistication". But for all my striving, I never was taught the "secret handshake" that my peers from middle and upper-class backgrounds used daily. As a graduate student, those class differences between me and my peers and professors are even more obvious and acute, and it made graduate school, at least for a while, seem somewhat hostile. I heard about "Limbo" on NPR at exactly the time when I felt most disconnected, and it made me feel like I wasn't alone. If nothing else, this book lets "Straddlers" know that no, we aren't alone. There's a lot more of us than anyone realizes. And we have overcome a lot - not only our upbringing, but the corners of society we most want to join but which demand as the price of admission an abandonment of everything we are.
Maybe the blue-collar world we grew up in still has something to give - the warmth, the humor, the strength, the straightforwardness - something that all the Thai restaurants, backpacking trips to Europe and Dave Matthews yuppie-fests can't replace.
Rating:
Summary: thought provoking book
Review: I heard an interview with Lubrano on NPR last Sunday and immediately bought the book. It is excellent, written with insight and clarity. Class is a touchy subject in the United States. Americans like to think of this country as a meritocracy, where one advances by power of one's deeds, not one's parents. That isn't necessarily the case, as Lubrano makes clear. He nicely combines his personal story (his father was a bricklayer, he is a journalist) with comments from many, many white collar children of blue collar parents and a few experts. I found myself nodding in agreement in every chapter, and occasionally laughing out loud. Social mobility has many costs, many of which are hidden. Lubrano brings them out into the open and holds them up for discussion and analysis. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Very insightful read
Review: I must admit that not only did I find this book insightful, interesting, and funny, but there were also times when I felt sadness. If only I had been able to read this book years ago, it would have allievated some of the "outsider" feeling that I have. After reading the book, I now see my workplace in a new light, and am now aware of the effects of class differences. Many thanks to Lubrano for putting down in black and white, what many of us "straddlers" have felt, but have not been able to articulate.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: I ordered this book after hearing Lubrano interviewed on National Public Radio, namely because the topic -- how blue-collar children arrive in, and adjust to, a white-collar life -- is interesting to me. I myself am a "Straddler", the term Lubrano uses to describe those moving from blue-collar roots to white-collar dreams, and although I identified with Lubrano's insights, I also sensed that Lubrano yearned to somehow return to his blue-collar roots. In short, I guess the point is this, the book objectively looks at the "Straddler" experience; however, it also subjectively looks at that experience, at times approaching a rambling, reminiscent tone. Those looking for an objective, scholarly examination should stick to the introduction and the conclusion of this book and should probably wait to order the paperback version, assuming their local library never receives a copy. Those looking for a more personal, subjective approach to the "Straddler" issues will enjoy this book, and will not lose by buying "Limbo" in hardback.
Rating:
Summary: This Is My Life!!!
Review: I read a review in the San Francisco Chronicle that raved about the book, calling it "superbly" written and reported. I couldn't agree more. Finally, someone has written about the dreaded C word (CLASS). Living here in San Francisco, capital of the PC Nation, it's long been my pet peeve that all this obsession about diversity focuses on race and ethnicity and even sexual orientation, but always ignores the biggest divider of us all: class. But rather than make the topic boring (i.e., scholarly), the author uses the personal stories of scores of people to show how you can take the Kid Out of His Blue-Collar Roots, But You Can't Take the Blue-Collar Roots Out of the Kid. The personal stories are funny and poignant, and - as the daughter of Southern European immigrants who still feels out-of-place among white-collar friends and colleagues - they spoke to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Therapy Anyone ? Blame it on Mom
Review: I think the author is crying out for help. His mom through her own feelings of inadequacy ( married to an uneducated bricklayer ) really messed with her son's head.
What's so wrong with being the son of an uneducated bricklayer ?
The author should accept the fact that he was raised by an uneducated bricklayer and a wanna be upper class mom who tried to be something she wasn't. She tried to convince her son he was better. The author knows deep down he's not and that's where the limbo is, therapy may help.
The author was, is now and will always be the son of an uneducated bricklayer. It's time to accept this and move on. To all moms out there teach your children to accept and not be ashamed of whatever their parents do for a living. If you enjoy reading about a pathetic somewhat of a sissy grown man who can't find happiness because he is the son of an uneducated bricklaying blue collar worker and an overbearing seemingly low self esteem mother this book's for you. I really can't recommend this book. It goes nowhere and takes you nowhere.
Rating:
Summary: I'm glad someone spoke about this topic
Review: I'm glad Lubrano attacked a subject that makes some people a little uneasy to discuss. With his insight and experience of being a "straddler", he really pushes buttons here and makes people uncomfortable with the discussion of---CLASS. It's not part of our everyday speech but its something that resonates with those who have the blue collar roots.
Rating:
Summary: Being proud of what you are
Review: Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano covers an area that has always interested me, but for which, I have never seen covered in any book before. I am from a working class background with a college education and I am presently an executive in a major corporation. Over my long and diverse career, I have encountered many of the situations described so well in this book. However, until I read this book, I always though they were unique to me. Now because of this excellent book I am starting to look at them from a different and much broader perspective. What I have always felt was a shortcoming on my part, my inability to adapted myself to become more like my fellow executives, is probably not a shortcoming, but a plus and one of the reason I have advanced so much further than many of them and further than I ever expected. I particularly enjoyed the autobiographical portion of the book.
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