Literary fiction is sometimes considered “serious fiction” as a way to distinguish itself from commercial or genre fiction. Social workers aim to “enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty” (NASW, 2018), and reading literary fiction proves to be complementary toward this aim. Nearly five years later, I have discovered that literary fiction has informed my social work practice in ways both personally and professionally rewarding. Literary fiction had represented the biggest hole in my library, so I began reading novels. With my shelves already filled with philosophy and political science texts from my undergraduate years, and new shelves filled with social work texts from my graduate years, I decided to fill in some holes in an attempt to be a “more rounded” reader.

Having spent the previous few years in graduate school reading texts about research methods, human behavior in the social environment, and community practice, I had neglected spending time reading subjects that had previously given my interior life fulfillment and joy. Finding idle time to be somewhat painful, I knew I would have to figure out how to make the time pleasurable, but also constructive.

I quickly realized that taking the train gave me a significant amount of idle time.

The job required me to take the train into the city every day. In April of 2014, I found myself on the verge of completing my MSW program and officially starting my first paid social work job for a union-based employee assistance program in Chicago. If you think something’s happened quickly, you’re looking at only a part of it.

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