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second_class_male's review
funny
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Racism
loujoseph's review against another edition
4.0
i liked it, the writing gets a little purple in parts but for the most part that didn't bother me too much.
vicrulz69's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
5.0
anarcho_zymurgist's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
A reasonably enjoyable and illuminating memoir, depicting the experiences of an assembly line worker in the automobile industry. It shows in particular the contrast to working in that industry during Reagan's presidency to before it. I enjoyed the exposition of the book more than a good portion of the rest. It was oddly fascinating to read about Hamper's life growing up, someone I had previously never heard of, and his reluctance to go into this career. Seeing what working the assembly line had done to break his father and father before him, and the rest of the family by extent, he vowed he wouldn't carry on the tradition. The inevitability of the assembly line however, prevailed. The climax of the book took me by surprise. It was quite sad to see and in hindsight, probably all too frequent for people working these jobs. The frequent use of humor was hit or miss for me, and is noticeably dated. As a pleasant surprise, Michael Moore wrote the foreword and appears in the book periodically.
jenklu's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
A peek into the auto-making heartland of America as it was through the author's childhood up to the late 80's. Hamper has a great sense of humor and a knack for bringing you into his slice of life. It's a quick read, and mostly light-hearted thanks to Hamper's humor. I particularly enjoyed the long-running bit where he was pretending to narrate his riveting as if it were a competition with the Japanese auto workers, and he came out on top. Reading as someone who's spent my whole life hearing about industrial Michigan as a hollowed-out wasteland, it was interesting to reconcile that with the vibrancy of Flint MI as described in the book.
There are some darker undercurrents to the book. There's a pervasive sense that these factory jobs, while providing a good living for the workers, cause deep mental trauma. Starting from Hamper's father, who couldn't hold down a job, to Hamper's more light-hearted means to pass time as quickly on his shifts with drugs, alcohol, hijinks, etc., up until the factory-induced anxiety attacks that plague Hamper towards the end of the book. There's a message about the difficult monotony of industrial life. While Hamper view automation and robotics as the enemy in the book, there's some kind of message that maybe these kinds of jobs really are best left to the machines.
There are some darker undercurrents to the book. There's a pervasive sense that these factory jobs, while providing a good living for the workers, cause deep mental trauma. Starting from Hamper's father, who couldn't hold down a job, to Hamper's more light-hearted means to pass time as quickly on his shifts with drugs, alcohol, hijinks, etc., up until the factory-induced anxiety attacks that plague Hamper towards the end of the book. There's a message about the difficult monotony of industrial life. While Hamper view automation and robotics as the enemy in the book, there's some kind of message that maybe these kinds of jobs really are best left to the machines.
katesusko's review against another edition
4.0
Hamper's writing is hilarious; the topic of the story is pretty dull (you can only talk about work on the assembly line for so long), but his tone makes this book a page turner.
peterpanda's review against another edition
4.0
I wasn't sure how I would feel going into this book because it was about working on an Assembly Line. The people I know that work at GM in Michigan always say it's just a boring job but it pays the bills. However, I had heard about Ben Hamper and how this was quite an easy read so I picked it up. Needless to say Ben Hamper did not disappoint. The way he tells the story is entertaining and he is a very funny man. I would recommend this to many people even those that aren't normally into "Memoirs" of the sorts because the way he wrote made this book a very easy read. You don't have to be a history buff to adore this story that's for sure.
abbyvg's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
fast-paced
5.0
A must read for anyone who a. Has lived in Michigan or b. Has ever used anything that came from a factory
Content Warnings
Minor: Homophobia, Mental illness, and Racism
donfoolery's review against another edition
5.0
I read Rivethead from the perspective of someone for who lived through the time period this book was written in. Very little of this touches my direct experience except vicariously though the stories of people I've known who have lived a version of the life described herein. I mention this because, as in my reading of [b:Nothin' But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland|15793526|Nothin' But Blue Skies The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland|Edward McClelland|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349734588s/15793526.jpg|21515500], I do have a slightly stronger connection than someone reading this to get off on Rust Belt Chic ruin porn hipsterism.
Those sorts would paint Hamper as a working class revolutionary, an embedded journalist exposing the truth of life at the bottom of the American auto industry in Flint, MI in the late '80s and early '90s. Certainly, the book's blurbs lead you to that line of thinking. But Hamper's and his cohorts' enemies weren't really General Motors, its then-Chairman and CEO Robert Smith, or even the shop foremen of the Truck and Bus plant. Hamper writes, "Our only adversary was Father Time", that is, the interminably slow second hand of the clock, plodding toward the end of your shift, during which your only choices are to either occupy your mind with plots to sneak out of the plant, inventing workplace-unsafe and semi-violent games like "Rivet Hockey" and "Dumpster Ball", or numbing your mind with chemicals. Anything to escape the tedium of the "unskilled labor" for which men like Hamper were programmed. Hamper doesn't (intentionally) expose a corporation's secret agenda; he's writing about what he's living, with skills he gleaned from Catholic high school education, reading and writing poetry, listening to Mothers of Invention albums, and taking LSD. The result is prose that simultaneously delights even as it shames you for thinking, "This, from a shoprat?"
Hamper is very much a product of his time and place, a Boomer writer using WWII and Viet Nam War references to talk about the Midwest cultural clashes surrounding him: Salaried employees vs. hourly employees. Foremen vs. the shoprats. Fathers vs. sons. Mars vs. Venus. Art rock vs. Classic rock. Living and writing within his comfort zone vs. the life he could've had, and actually sampled through his association with filmmaker Michael Moore. (The book is worth the price of admission just to read an account of Moore outside of Moore's narrative.) Thing is, you wouldn't think a book of pieces written in the late '80s/early '90s would be as even-handed as it is about the US auto industry's competition with Japan, and so you learn things like about how GM didn't just try to instill a fear of Toyota in its workers, but of Ford, as well.
Consequently, being a product of his time and place, the writing shows Hamper's exposure to the background radiation of racism, classism, misogyny, body-shaming, slut-shaming, homophobia, and ableism you'd expect from someone who grew up the Midwest in the '60s and '70s. (One plus: the use of the word tranny in the book only ever refers to an automobile's transmission.) I have no reason to believe Hamper would espouse or display the above; I doubt he would in this day and age where he continues to do the occassional reading. But neither does Hamper try to disabuse you of the notion that some of his family and coworkers might.
Hamper is often referred to as Flint's answer to Cleveland's Harvey Pekar. Hamper's output and subject matter certainly bear a resemblance, from life on the job right down to the unique cast of secondary characters from the line. Neither men particularly want your praise or your pity. But even Pekar's observations occasionally had bright, if rare, moments of optimism. Harvey wanted to show profundity hidden in the quotidian. Hamper, on the other hand, shows you absurdity hidden in the drudgery.
In the end, Rivethead is the story of a man embracing his destiny, for better AND for worse, and ending in a place you don't expect but by which you shouldn't be especially shocked.
Those sorts would paint Hamper as a working class revolutionary, an embedded journalist exposing the truth of life at the bottom of the American auto industry in Flint, MI in the late '80s and early '90s. Certainly, the book's blurbs lead you to that line of thinking. But Hamper's and his cohorts' enemies weren't really General Motors, its then-Chairman and CEO Robert Smith, or even the shop foremen of the Truck and Bus plant. Hamper writes, "Our only adversary was Father Time", that is, the interminably slow second hand of the clock, plodding toward the end of your shift, during which your only choices are to either occupy your mind with plots to sneak out of the plant, inventing workplace-unsafe and semi-violent games like "Rivet Hockey" and "Dumpster Ball", or numbing your mind with chemicals. Anything to escape the tedium of the "unskilled labor" for which men like Hamper were programmed. Hamper doesn't (intentionally) expose a corporation's secret agenda; he's writing about what he's living, with skills he gleaned from Catholic high school education, reading and writing poetry, listening to Mothers of Invention albums, and taking LSD. The result is prose that simultaneously delights even as it shames you for thinking, "This, from a shoprat?"
Hamper is very much a product of his time and place, a Boomer writer using WWII and Viet Nam War references to talk about the Midwest cultural clashes surrounding him: Salaried employees vs. hourly employees. Foremen vs. the shoprats. Fathers vs. sons. Mars vs. Venus. Art rock vs. Classic rock. Living and writing within his comfort zone vs. the life he could've had, and actually sampled through his association with filmmaker Michael Moore. (The book is worth the price of admission just to read an account of Moore outside of Moore's narrative.) Thing is, you wouldn't think a book of pieces written in the late '80s/early '90s would be as even-handed as it is about the US auto industry's competition with Japan, and so you learn things like about how GM didn't just try to instill a fear of Toyota in its workers, but of Ford, as well.
Consequently, being a product of his time and place, the writing shows Hamper's exposure to the background radiation of racism, classism, misogyny, body-shaming, slut-shaming, homophobia, and ableism you'd expect from someone who grew up the Midwest in the '60s and '70s. (One plus: the use of the word tranny in the book only ever refers to an automobile's transmission.) I have no reason to believe Hamper would espouse or display the above; I doubt he would in this day and age where he continues to do the occassional reading. But neither does Hamper try to disabuse you of the notion that some of his family and coworkers might.
Hamper is often referred to as Flint's answer to Cleveland's Harvey Pekar. Hamper's output and subject matter certainly bear a resemblance, from life on the job right down to the unique cast of secondary characters from the line. Neither men particularly want your praise or your pity. But even Pekar's observations occasionally had bright, if rare, moments of optimism. Harvey wanted to show profundity hidden in the quotidian. Hamper, on the other hand, shows you absurdity hidden in the drudgery.
In the end, Rivethead is the story of a man embracing his destiny, for better AND for worse, and ending in a place you don't expect but by which you shouldn't be especially shocked.
The truth was loose: I was the son of a son of a bitch, an ancestral prodigy born to clobber my way through loathsome dungheaps of idiot labor. My genes were cocked and loaded. I was a meteor, a gunslinger, a switchblade boomerang hurled from the pecker dribblets of my forefathers' untainted jalopy seed. I was Al Kaline peggin’ home a beebee from the right field corner. I was Picasso applyin’ the final masterstroke to his frenzied Guernica. I was Wilson Pickett stompin’ up the stairway of the Midnight Hour. I was one blazin’ tomahawk of m-fuggin’ eel snot. Graceful and indomitable. Methodical and brain-dead. The quintessential shoprat. The Rivethead.
library_lurker's review against another edition
4.0
this guy is a super unlikeable character, and i can't imagine how annoying he must have been to work with. however, his observations can be pretty sharp and funny and this book is a real page-turner. occasionally, he will come up with a great one-liner ("when they heard of the layoffs coming, the whole factory turned into one giant tremble-fest"). and i laughed aloud when he told the television reporter who wanted to film him on the assembly line that he was "more likely to get private footage of the pope taking a dump." ha!