A memoir of life on a car assembly line. Ben Hamper takes the reader into the world of the shoprats and rivetheads, nicknames for people who work building cars. The author aims to give an insight into the largely forgotten people at the heart of any industrial nation.
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First Sentence
I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD THE FIRST TIME I EVER SET FOOT inside an automobile factory. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD THE FIRST TIME I EVER SET FOOT inside an automobile factory. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I was forced to read this book...against my better wishes, my hellish American History professor assigned this book to our class. As I read the title I remembered thinking: "how in the world is an assembly line job interesting enough to read about?" About the only thing I thought the book had going for it was the foreward by Michael Moore. It looked like I was going have to spend another weekend plodding though a boring book when I could have been spending it at the movies or out with my friends. It turned out to be one of the best weekends of my life. The books was hilarious -- It was real, gritty, sharp and wonderfully written. After reading the introduction, I was hooked: I locked myself in my room, unplugged the telephone and didn't put down the book until I was finished. That was ten minutes ago -- now I am online looking to see if he has written any other books...I was disapointed to see that he hasn't. Ben Hamper -- wherever you are -- I have joined the ranks as your loyal fan. Even though you no longer work for GM, I hope you will find another story out there and tell the world about it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I just bought Rivethead again, probably the fifth or sixth time. You never get it back when you lend it to people. Not only is this book hilarious and bitingly witty, it is a brilliant look at how work screws you up. I first read it when working in an industrial packaging factory, no where near as brutal as the rivetline at GM, but there's so much you can relate to. Anyone who's ever worked in a factory, anyone who wonders why ordinary Americans are as they are needs to, no MUST, read this book.
Better than anything Michael Moore has written, sorry that Ben Hamper is no longer writing.
Better than anything Michael Moore has written, sorry that Ben Hamper is no longer writing.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A. Reynolds
Format:Paperback
Although Hamper's comedic effect is often too studied, almost affected, it still elicits a hearty bellylaugh - in a way that Bukowski has not.
Ben Hamper takes us on a journey into the industrial wastelands of blue-collar toil - beer, repetition, noise, grime, mental atrophy...all the things that have made the US in to the industrial giant it is. He writes with a casually sharpened observation that belies his eventual descent in to the maddened pit created by the demons of industrialization. Indeed, I was surprised by how this chronicle ends and the annals or work-related literature deserve a closure from Hamper, as the lastest recruit 'accepting the baton from crab claw to puppy paw'.
Ben Hamper has written about only one topic yet he has done it with greater panache than Bukowski's 'Post Office'.Like they say - 'It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it!'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rivetting
I bought this after reading a recommendation by Jeremy Clarkson, and I wasn't disappointed. If you've ever worked for a large company or on a shop floor- met people with weird... Read more
Published 24 months ago by Dan Brierley
3.0 out of 5 stars
rivethead
Product was not as good as expected. Pages started to come loose as soon as I started reading it. Rivethead
Published on 11 Oct 2009 by G. Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting
A great book period.One of the very few books written by a working class writer.'Ragged trousered philanthrapist' and 'the grass arena' are the only ones that come to mind. Read more
Published on 18 July 2009 by bucky
5.0 out of 5 stars
A British view
I first read this book when I working in a factory, mid 1980's, my girlfriend at the time lent it to me. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2009 by mikee
3.0 out of 5 stars
US lorry production
This is a description of the erratic life style of an assembly line worker at a General Motors factory at Flint, Michigan, trying to make his work more interesting. Read more
Published on 6 April 2009 by Dr. Geoffrey Brundrett
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be required reading for business management courses
Hamper's style reads like a cross between James Thurber and Hunter S Thompson - savage, endlessy referential and very very funny. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
why didn't you go into brewing?
ben hamper would have made a great brewery worker , with his cynicism and wrath he could have been the next Hunter .s Thompson,,,and we would all have loved it... Read more
Published on 15 Jun 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars
A reluctant champion of the shoprat
Ben Hamper is best known as "the guy shooting free throws" in Michael Moore's "Roger and Me". Read more
Published on 8 Mar 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars
I be
Unlike the songs of Bruce Springsteen that focus upon the working class of America, Hamper provides one with a glimpse into the life of an American factory worker. Read more
Published on 3 Dec 1998
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ben Hamper tells it like it is, I was there !
Life on the line comes back to haunt me with every word Ben writes. It's all true, I worked with Ben, I saw it all, drunk, high, sometimes sober. Read more
Published on 2 Dec 1998
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