Auto Biography; A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream

Earl Swift

4.07

204 ratings by Goodreads

9781483004129: Auto Biography; A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream

ISBN 10: 1483004120 ISBN 13: 9781483004129

Publisher: HarperCollins Audio and Blackstone Audio, 2014

A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw-genius auto mechanic as he painstakingly attempts to restores a classic 1957 Chevy to its former glory--all while the FBI and local law enforcement close in.

To Tommy Arney, the old cars at Moyock Muscle are archeological artifacts, twentieth-century fossils that represent a place and a people utterly devoted to the automobile and transformed by it. But to his rural North Carolina town, they're not history; they're junk. When Tommy acquires a rusted out wreck of an old Chevy and promises to return it to a shiny, chromed work of American art, he sees one last chance to salvage his respect, keep himself out of jail, and save his business. But for this folk hero who is often on the wrong side of the law, the odds of success are long, especially when the FBI, local authorities, and the bank are closing in.

Written for motor heads and automotive novices alike, Auto biography interweaves this improbable hero's journey with the story of one iconic car to chart the rise, fall, and rebirth of the American Dream. Told in words and eight pages of photos, this wise, charming, and heartbreaking true story is an indelible portrait of a man, a machine, and a nation on the road from a glorious past into an unknown future.

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Review:

Earl Swift Wiley Cash

Wiley Cash, author of This Dark Road to Mercy and A Land More Kind than Home, interviews Earl Swift about Auto Biography.

Wiley Cash (WC): The star of Auto Biography is a particular ’57 Chevy that passes through a number of lives that you chronicle beautifully. But the car’s co-star is Tommy Arney, a hard-nosed ex- and future convict and the car’s current owner. Tommy’s incredible history of family trouble, violence, and survival is threaded throughout the book. How did you first meet Tommy?

Earl Swift (ES): One evening in December 1993, my editors at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, dispatched me to the Body Shop, a go-go bar Tommy owned: He’d taken the state to court over a regulation forbidding the sale of mixed drinks in the presence of a woman’s bare midriff or buttocks, both of which were in ample supply at his club and the biggest draw for his clientele. He prevailed in the dispute, so I was assigned to interview him. I enjoyed the visit thoroughly - if you were with Tommy in those days, you were either having a great time or getting your ass whipped - and I left the meeting impressed that this bear of a man, whose formal education had ended in fifth grade and who’d long danced along the law’s ragged edge, was a really smart, engaging fellow with a great sense of humor.

WC: Tommy is definitely a hero-outlaw like Tony Soprano or Billy the Kid. This type of figure feels distinctly American to me. Do you believe Tommy fits that role?

ES: I do see him that way. The young Tommy was a lethal fellow, with an explosive temper and a chip on his shoulder the size of a tectonic plate. But he lived by a personal code: Few of his victims weren’t on the prowl for trouble. And alongside the violent and mean Tommy Arney was an utter charmer, generous and funny, straight-shooting and smart.

WC: Auto Biography follows this ’57 Chevy through a number of lives before it lands in Tommy’s possession, and it follows the evolution of our nation through so many important eras: Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the Reagan years, etc. Which owner and era interested you the most as you were writing about him or her?

ES: I guess every journalist looks back most fondly on those stories that required the greatest effort or ingenuity to land, and in that respect writing about the car’s sixth owner, Mary Ricketts, brought me particular satisfaction. I interviewed Mary several times in 2004 and spoke with her occasionally in the years that followed, but it was only after her death in 2011 that I found out — at her memorial service — that she’d suffered an aneurysm years before I met her, and that the Mary I’d met was nothing like the Mary who’d owned the Chevy. So I set out to reconstruct her as she was in the 1980s. It took a few months, but with tremendous help from her friends and family, I was able to do it.

WC: Auto Biography reminds me of a frame tale like Canterbury Tales or a film like “The Red Violin”. The frame of the story is the life of this single car, but the story’s heart is the lives through which it passes. Is there a book or a film that inspired you to structure Auto Biography in this particular way?

ES: What inspired me to attempt this was my own automotive past. I’ve owned old cars and bad cars, and a few cars that were both old and bad, and while cursing them under my breath would sometimes find myself wondering about the poor saps who had drove these wrecks before me. I’ve also had a few great cars that I’ve sold too soon, and I’ve contemplated their fates since — wondering whether their new homes are as loving as the one I provided.

From the Back Cover:

An instant classic of automotive literature and a brilliantly unique examination of the modern American experience, Earl Swift's Auto Biography charts the unforgettable odyssey of one iconic 1957 Chevy wagon from gleaming symbol of Jet Age optimism to a rusted hulk—and the car's unlikely savior, a larger-than-life motorhead named Tommy Arney, who embarks on a mission to restore the Chevy to full glory before his own demons—and the FBI—doom him and the car.

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