Rivethead
Tales from the Assembly Line
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The man the Detroit Free Press calls "a blue collar Tom Wolfe" delivers a full-barreled blast of truth and gritty reality in Rivethead, a no-holds-barred journey through the belly of the American industrial beast.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a voice often as powerful as the riveting gun he wielded in the 1970s and '80s in a Flint, Mich., General Motors assembly plant, Hamper nails down the excruciating boredom of a shoprat's life on the line. These roughly chronological essays, many published in the local press, bare the rage and humor that, with booze and drugs, friendships and enmities, served to speed along the timeclock's ``suffocating minute hand.'' A fourth-generation factory worker, raised on hard music, hard liquor and soft drugs, given a parochial school education, Hamper was the eldest of eight children deserted by their father, supported by their mother. He was determined not to be an auto worker but soon after high school, married and a father, he needed the steady work GM offered. With free-ranging intelligence and a sharply anarchic sensibility, he tries to figure out and establish some control over his place in GM's massive corporate system. While these essays might best satisfy in small doses, Hamper, no longer a GM employee, writes with unrelenting energy. BOMC and QPB selections; film rights to Warner Bros.
Customer Reviews
Absorbing and acerbic
So happy to see Rivethead in iBooks. It's a fast read and a sobering peek into a shop rat's life (Grandpa retired from Saginaw Steering Gear, many of my family are/were second-tier-supplier workers earning way less!). For those who last, they can look forward to ruined shoulders & joints. Think they're overpaid? Try the job yourself just once. Thank you again, Ben!
Good book! Few editing flubs.
The book was excellent. Really comical, cynical, dark, upbeat, and a fantastic read all together. My only gripe was that there were numerous editing errors. As I'm unfamiliar with how books are e-published, it could be a simple spell check mistake. It never made too much of a disruption in reading and wasn't on every page.