His entry begins:When I was writing Nothin’ but Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times and Hopes of America’s Industrial Heartland, one of my goals was to show readers what an industrial city looked, sounded and smelled like. I went to high school across the street from a Fisher Body auto plant in Lansing, Mich. Every time I ran on the track, I inhaled paint fumes. Night shift workers watched our football games from balconies across Michigan Avenue. Double-decker auto carriers ferried bodies to the assembly plant on the Grand River, which glowed with a rainbow sheen.About Nothin' But Blue Skies, from the publisher:
I read over a hundred books in my research, but only four of them captured the industrial life I’d witnessed growing up:
Rivethead, by Ben Hamper: Hamper spent 11 years riveting bumpers onto Chevy Suburbans at GM Truck and Bus in Flint. During a layoff, he submitted a music review to the Michigan Voice, an alternative newspaper edited by Michael Moore. Moore convinced him to write a column about the shop (as Michiganders call auto plants). As a high school student, I read the Voice avidly. Hamper’s hilarious tales of working on the line with Hogjaw and the Polish Sex God, and drinking Bud in Mark’s Lounge after the shift, made...[read on]
The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region became the "arsenal of democracy"-the greatest manufacturing center in the world-in the years during and after World War II, thanks to natural advantages and a welcoming culture. Decades of unprecedented prosperityLearn more about the book and author at Edward McClelland's website.followed, memorably punctuated by riots, strikes, burning rivers, and oil embargoes. A vibrant, quintessentially American character bloomed in the region's cities, suburbs, and backwaters.
But the innovation and industry that defined the Rust Belt also helped to hasten its demise. An air conditioner invented in Upstate New York transformed the South from a sweaty backwoods to a non-unionized industrial competitor. Japan and Germany recovered from their defeat to build fuel-efficient cars in the stagnant 1970s. The tentpole factories that paid workers so well also filled the air with soot, and poisoned waters and soil. The jobs drifted elsewhere, and many of the people soon followed suit.
Nothin' but Blue Skies tells the story of how the country's industrial heartland grew, boomed, bottomed, and hopes to be reborn. Through a propulsive blend of storytelling and reportage, celebrated writer Edward McClelland delivers the rise, fall, and revival of the Rust Belt and its people.
The Page 99 Test: Horseplayers: Life at the Track.
Writers Read: Ted McClelland (October 2007).
Writers Read: Edward McClelland.
--Marshal Zeringue
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