Jonathan Malesic - The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives

I would like to thank the many friends, colleagues, and mentors whose intellectual, editorial, and emotional support helped make this book better: Beth Admiraal, Abbey Arnett, Garrett Barr, Dan Clasby, Jason Danner, Barb Fenner, Mark Fenner, Robin Field, Amy Freund, Tony Grasso, Kendra Greene, Erin Greer, Charles Hatfield, Annelise Heinz, Dan Issing, Farrell Kelly, Kurtley Knight, Katie Krummeck, Vincent Lloyd, Tom Mackaman, Nicole Mares, Charles Marsh, Chuck Mathewes, Jenny McBride, Michael McGregor, Noreen OConnor, Regan Reitsma, Cris Scarboro, Joel Shuman, Ross Sloan, Jessie Starling, Whitney Stewart, Janice Thompson, Brian Till, Shilyh Warren, Ben Wright, and Willie Young.

I thank my critique partners Elizabeth Barbour, Ceal Klingler, Christina Larocco, Robin Macdonald, Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail, Martha Wolfe, and Vonetta Young. Their careful and loving attention to my work over the last several years improved this project, and my writing in general, immeasurably. I thank Anne Gray Fischer and Will Myers for reading and talking about this book so often, so willingly, and with such intelligence and humor.

I thank Thomas Hagenbuch and Emily Zurek not only for our years-long dialogue about work but as representatives of hundreds of students who have helped me clarify my thinking on this topic.

I thank all those who shared their stories with me, both those named in the book and not, as well as the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, St. Benedicts Monastery, St. Johns Abbey, and CitySquare.

I thank the Collegeville Institute for twice hosting me for writing workshops, and the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Louisville Institute for funding this project early on.

I thank the newspaper, magazine, and journal editors who sharpened my words and thoughts in earlier stages of this project: Elizabeth Bruenig, Evan Derkacz, Aline Kalbian, Martin Kavka, Ryan Kearney, Laura Marsh, B.D. McClay, John Nagy, Tim Reidy, Matt Sitman, Jay Tolson, and Kerry Weber.

I thank the band The War on Drugs, whose album Lost in the Dream was the soundtrack for my work.

I thank the University of California Press for bringing this book to you. I thank especially Naomi Schneider for seeing the book in my writing on burnout, as well as Summer Farah, Teresa Iafolla, Benjy Mailings, Francisco Reinking, and all those staff members whose labor I did not get to see firsthand. I thank Catherine Osborne, who copyedited the manuscript, and Shannon M.T. Li, who indexed it. I thank the scholars, including Anna Katharina Schaffner, who, at the presss invitation, offered thoughtful comments on a draft of this manuscript.

I thank my family for their enduring support: my mother Carol, my sisters Lisa and Nicole, and my brother Jeff. I thank those whom we lost during my work on this book: Tony, Nana, and my father George.

I thank the following publications for permission to use material I wrote that was originally published in their pages: Taming the Demon, Commonweal, February 8, 2019; When Work and Meaning Part Ways, The Hedgehog Review 20, no. 3 (Fall 2018); Millennials Don't Have a Monopoly on Burnout, The New Republic, January 10, 2019; Imagining a Better Life After Coronavirus, The New Republic, April 1, 2020.

I thank all those I have forgotten to thank here.

Above all, I thank Ashley Barnes. In our life together, burnout has been not just an intellectual problem but an existential one, too. She helps me solve it every day. Without her, none of this would have been possible.