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Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line, by Ben Hamper
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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.
- Sales Rank: #438201 in Books
- Published on: 1991-08
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.29" h x 1.10" w x 6.42" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 234 pages
From 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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Hamper, a son, a grandson, and a great-grandson of General Motors' "shoprats," chronicles ten years spent in an abusive marriage with GM in Flint, Michigan. Despite exploitative management policies, arrogant and/or incompetent supervisors, and mind-numbing working conditions, Hamper, like the abused spouse who keeps returning to the abuser, becomes de pressed during layoffs and revives when recalled to the assembly line. Hamper copes with his perceived limited options by consuming impressive quantities of alcohol and writing an irreverent, cynically humorous column about shoprat life for an alternative newspaper. How much of Hamper's alienation and later panic disorder are the result of his ten years at GM and how much are due to genetics and choices is unexplored. Another weakness is Hamper's graceless style and his overuse of four-letter words. Despite these shortcomings, blue-collar voices are rarely heard, and therefore this is recommended for public libraries.
- Andrea C. Dragon, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, N.J.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Based on his ``Rivethead'' column that has appeared in Midwest newspapers as well as in Mother Jones, here is Hamper's tortured description of his wretched career as a General Motors worker in the factories of Flint, Michigan. A fourth generation ``shoprat'' (one uncle spent 45 years at the Buick Engine Plant), Hamper explains how an irresponsible father, numerous siblings, and his own penchant for laziness, drugs, and taverns pointed directly to a future in the plants, despite his inclinations toward poetry and music. In 1977, he reluctantly began work in the cab shop (a place with a noise level ``like some hideous unrelenting tape loop of trains having sex''). Ranging from this experience to his retirement ten years later, Hamper writes of the drudgery of factory labor; repeated layoffs and call-backs; extensive on-the-job alcohol and drug consumption by himself and fellow workers; ongoing battles with foremen and supervisors; and his quest, similar to that of his mentor, Michael Moore, director of Roger and Me, to go bowling with GM chairman Roger Smith. His ``Rivethead'' series hardly endeared him to management, nor did his often obnoxious behavior. In 1986, at about the time his column first appeared in Mother Jones, he began to experience ``severe panic disorder,'' or anxiety attacks, and has spent the past few years in and out of a mental-health clinic. Although perceptively critical of American business management, practice, and values, Hamper nearsightedly finds little of worth or integrity in his fellow workers, and is downright offensive toward women, who, in his world, ``lust for summer sausage.'' Rivethead indeed. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Blue-collar worker
By Juanita Bradstreet
I would have to say the book was enjoyable, creative, but not intellectual by far. There was a lot of dry humor which I didn’t think was amusing and I thought it hindered the thought process of imagining the average blue collar worker. This book was written roughly about the 70’s and 80’s of a man who worked the assembly line for General Motor’s in Flint, Michigan. They called him “Rivethead” which suited his character.
I guess it’s hard for me to think that this person, Ben Hamper and others spent so much time mischievously causing chaos everyday they went to work without any concern about their job, co-workers or management. It was clear that Mr. Hamper’s ambitions went no further then quitting-time, whether it was 10 am, 1 pm, or 3pm. Him and his buddies would drink on the job, some did drugs and the management sometimes gave out warnings but mostly looked the other way because the workers would harassed them intensely. All their effort went into booze, drugs, and rock and roll music prominently in the lives of these men in the 70’s.
Most of the men wanted to get their thirty years in for their pension but in this time of auto making it was off, collecting unemployment and on the job working when the economy permitted. So, it was going to take years to be able to get that pension. I felt like it was a catch twenty-two situation for them so maybe their behaviors were warranted. Combinations of daily repetitious routine, lack of a clear sense of purpose, and guiltless self-destructive habits can make thirty years seem like an eternity. However, the life of Ben Hamper seemed like an endemic of downright insanity….His motto was, “to work less, make more money, and spend it all on booze and music“. The motto was the hard labor he did day to day.
Ben Hamper wrote an excellent description of the assembly line and American automobile industry but it was shocking to read how the workers behaved. However, this is only one man’s description of the blue collar job but there were plenty of reviews that agreed with his definition of the management and auto-workers at General Motors at that time. The umpteen stories, comical events, bad behaviors, and working on the assembly line kept the lives of these men surviving in order to receive their pay-checks. Yet, I have to say the authenticity to the blue collar voice Ben sometimes sounded like a fair stand-up comic with the intent of keeping the readers laughing through dry-irony and wisdom.
I also worked in a shoe factory for years in the 70’s and 80’s and I was on an assembly line; paid by piece-work and made good money, became one of the top stitcher’s, and created quality work. My co-workers and I had plenty of fun and laughter but we respected others and the company. I guess some men might have been friskier and thought a job is something you make the best of…and they did!!
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Painfully Entertaining
By Peter
I am about ten years younger than the author and we shared so many similarities in life it is spooky. I entered the service in the early eighties and worked a very similar low end existence on an isolated duty station. The book portrays in depth what young men will sometimes due to alleviate the boredom of a spiritually unfulfilling job. The massive drinking on and off the job, the foolish and immature pranks and games, the scheming, the conflicts, and the friendships that develop among those who toil together. The problem I have with the book is that Ben Hamper never followed the course of natural evolution and progressed outside that childish mode. He suffered from a state of arrested development. As the writer we expect that the observer would have greater incite into the overall experience and not simply be narrowly focused on the small percentage of people lack the ability to evolve over time. The character arc is missing and we are stuck following rivet head to the bleak demise of his own volition. Another curious aspect of this book is what he chose not to include. I thought he might have been gay because he fails to mention any desire for companionship other than the ones he had with men at work. That theory was proven false when he briefly mentions some girl friends later in the book. He also makes it clear his father was disappointing but then mentions he has a daughter who is never given any consideration through out the book. Did he never speak to her and thus repeat the same childhood he had? This entire book seem like nothing more than a catalog of drunken GM worker stories rather than that of a man's life story. I shall not end on a negative note and should mention his style was entertaining and his humor often very on target. In the end I am glad I read it but am left somewhat unsatisfied.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great book for the car nut in your life - entertaining.
By Black Hole Gang
Funny, not as scary as Savage Factory, this is about the shenanigans inside a U.S. pickup truck factory. It's a great gift for the car nut in your life. Ben was a writer for a local paper in Flint at one time and worked with Michael Moore also. I hear that this may become a movie. He's got a radio show in Traverse City now.
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