Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream - Couverture souple

Swift, Earl

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0062326953 ISBN 13 : 9780062326959

Editeur : William Morrow Large Print, 2014

Synopsis

A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw auto dealer as he struggles to save a rusted '57 Chevy—a car that has already passed through twelve pairs of hands before his—while financial ruin, government bureaucrats and the FBI close in on him.

Slumped among hundreds of other decrepit hulks on a treeless, windswept moor in eastern North Carolina, the Chevy evokes none of the Jet Age mystique that made it the most beloved car to ever roll off an assembly line. It's open to the rain. Birds nest in its seats. Officials of the surrounding county consider it junk.

To Tommy Arney, it's anything but: It's a fossil of the twentieth-century American experience, of a place and a people utterly devoted to the automobile and changed by it in myriad ways. It's a piece of history—especially so because its flaking skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years.

So, hassled by a growing assortment of challengers, the Chevy's thirteenth owner—an orphan, grade-school dropout and rounder, a felon arrested seventy-odd times, and a man who's been written off as a ruin himself--embarks on a mission to save the car and preserve long record of human experience it carries in its steel and upholstery.

Written for both gearheads and Sunday drivers, Auto Biography charts the shifting nature of the American Dream and our strange and abiding relationship with the automobile, through an iconic classic and an improbable, unforgettable hero.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Earl Swift is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chesapeake Requiem, which was named to ten best-of-the-year lists. His other books include Hell Put to Shame, Across the Airless Wilds, Auto Biography, The Big Roads, and Where They Lay. A former reporter for the Virginian-Pilot and a contributor to Outside and other publications, he is a fellow of Virginia Humanities at the University of Virginia. He lives in the Blue Ridge mountains west of Charlottesville.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

An unforgettable ode to American car culture, award-winning author Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating narrative follows an outlaw-genius motorhead as he attempts to restore an iconic 1957 Chevy from rusted-out wreck to gleaming work of American art—before the FBI closes in.

A classic '57 Chevy, in wretched shape: Slumped among hundreds of other rusting hulks on a treeless, windswept patch of North Carolina, the Chevy evokes none of the Jet Age optimism that made it the most beloved and instantly recognizable car to ever roll off an assembly line. It's thrashed. A goner. There seems little left to scrap, let alone save.

But for its unlikely rescuer, the Chevy isn't junk. For Tommy Arney it's a piece of history—especially so because its decrepit skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years through thirteen owners. So, hassled by banks, local officials, the FBI, and his own volatile demons, the Chevy's thirteenth owner embarks on a mission to save the car and preserve the long record of human experience it carries in its steel and upholstery.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: William Morrow Large Print
• Date d'édition: 2014
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0062326953
• ISBN 13: 9780062326959
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 576
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible