Autobiography earl swift

Sign up for free Log in. Auto biography : a classic car, an outlaw motorhead, and 57 years of the American dream Bookreader Item Preview. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest.

Sign up Log in. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Open Library American Libraries. Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book! Community Reviews. Search review text. Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews. Andrea Rizzo. I never thought I would be so interested in a book about cars, but Swift is always able to spin his tales in such in an engaging way.

In particular, I enjoyed the colorful dialogue and descriptions that made Tommy Arney and his band of merry men come alive on the pages. Jay French. When I saw the description of Auto Biography, I thought it would be something like an American Chopper episode, but with car restoration. There is a little of that kind of feel, but not until the second half of the book.

The first half starts with an interesting idea — tracing the ownership of a 57 Chevy wagon through a dozen former owners, including stories about the car, how it was bought and sold, and some biography about the owners and their city, Norfolk. Added to the mix was the life story of one Tommy Arney, outlaw motorhead of the title, and to-be restorer of the auto in question.

You really got the feel for the people and the times and about how cars fare as they age. The book takes a major left turn in the second half. This part of the story details the restoration of the car at the same time as Arney is facing criminal charges and various other governmental entanglements. His violent past is downplayed here, but you get the impression that Arney will finally have to pay for his past transgressions, even as the dilapidated Chevy gets a new chance to become a car that is desired.

The part that I was most interested in, the restoration, is described in a level of detail that I appreciated, the grinding and cutting, the painting, the research, the re-evaluations, the donors, even the moving of the car during the process is chronicled, and the description was unexpectedly absorbing. The characters in this book are real characters, funny and interesting, but they did feel a bit too much like they were in a reality show, especially in their conversations.

The writing overall was funny in a fresh way, and kept the interest up throughout the different phases of the book. I would read more by Swift. Harvey Smith. Very entertaining book. Combines elements of fiction and non-fiction in a way that give you an idea of what can happen in the lifetime of a car and various people who own it. The language is very colorful in regards to some characters, and may be objectionable to some, but in reality it's accurate for a character who has a fifth grade education, and who is a hooligan.

Fascinating stuff, in regards to how old cars get restored. Also, the book educates you as to how cars used to be built, as opposed to how they are today. Very different building processes. Loved the book. Timothy Juhl. I wanted something different to listen to as I drove to work, different from the usual memoirs and biographies of famous writers or Jewish families.

I love a bit of contemporary history, especially history that I can touch easily in my own memory banks and this memoir of the Chevy, the American car culture, and a foul-mouthed, self-proclaimed car guy with a penchant for fighting, felt like a good diversion. And for much of the book, it was exactly that. There was a lot of nostalgia evoked.

I saw my father and his Dad, both 'car guys', who would have been able to easily visualize every gear, strut, and nuanced curve of the '57 Chevy. It evoked memories of my maternal grandfather, who owned a towing company and had a junk yard full of wrecked cars, rusting and wondrous, and the perfect place for a kid to run around exploring Tommy Arney, the subject of this book, would have throat-punched anyone who called his business a junk yard.

I want to thank the author for taking a bit of time in the book to describe his own investigative work. Not only is this book about the '57 Chevy, but it about a specific '57 Chevy wagon, and the author tracked the car through 12 owners and in doing so created another character who gleams off the showroom floor in and then ages through the years, and the author gives us a lifeline of an automobile.

As I have indicated, for much of the book, there is great nostalgia. A yearning for the simpler times of the s and the following two or three decades. One third of the book, the ending third, is dedicated to the rebuilding of this Chevy wagon and it is definitely detailed and overly so, and for those of us who aren't motorheads, it's a drag.

It also goes in depth on the trials and tribulations of Mr. Arney, who built up an empire of go-go clubs, rental properties, and his classic auto business, but drew the attention of city inspectors and the IRS and ultimately would lose much of his personal worth before being sent to prison. I will add a caveat for readers, Mr. Arney is the possessor of a very foul mouth and at times I found it distracting to hear.

I have nothing against swearing, my own grandfather cussed in a similarly relentless manner, but to hear it as frequently in the audiobook was very off-putting. Maybe it reads easier in the book form. This story draws you in with colorful characters, language, and funny stories. Buried in this well-done story we also have brilliant depictions of the state of the blue collar working class in our country.

The accumulated toll of the factory closings, abandoned stores, and homes paints a picture of the decline of core central cities in our country. The despair is palpable as they suffer from bouts of unemployment, underemployment and the lack of hope. We know that these people decided an election. In a brilliant bit of dogged research and determination, he traces the story of an old 57 Chevy.

In the end, when the Chevy is rebuilt, reborn in the junkyard, most of the old owners return for one last visit. We can only hope that Tommy Armey can emerge, like the Chevy, reborn and reunited with his classic car. Anne S. This book is about a 57 Chevy and it's owners from its purchase as a new car until when the book was finished.

The interesting part of the book is about the numerous owners through the years, especially the man who eventually restored the car. I read Chesapeake Requiem by Earl Swift. He's a good writer and an excellent reporter. He doesn't let his opinions become part of the story. He lets each character speak for themselves. Tommy Arney, who restored the car and is the main character in the book, brought himself up from a challenging childhood.

He only finished the fifth grade. But he's not what I would consider the usual success story. He's violent, profane and intimidates even those close to him.

Autobiography earl swift

Yet he works hard and builds a successful business. Brian Grouhel. In fact, as America was shocked to learn, the dead were among thousands of Black men enslaved throughout the South in conditions every bit as dire as those before the Civil War. Hell Put to Shame tells the forgotten story of that mass killing and of the revelations about peonage, or debt slavery, that it placed before a public satisfied that involuntary servitude had ended at Appomattox more than fifty years before.