{"product_id":"auto-biography-a-classic-car-an-outlaw-motorhead-and-57-years-of-the-american-dream","title":"Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream","description":"\u003cp\u003eA brilliant blend of \u003cem\u003eShop Class as Soulcraft\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Orchid Thief\u003c\/em\u003e, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating \u003cem\u003eAuto Biography\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlumped 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo 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 \u003cem\u003ehistory\u003c\/em\u003e--especially so because its flaking skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten for both gearheads and Sunday drivers, \u003cem\u003eAuto Biography\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41926179291221,"sku":"9780062282682","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0617\/0211\/1317\/files\/imageloader_c74a2c4c-aa86-4dbf-b18a-7dac4a13ff0e.jpg?v=1764622330","url":"https:\/\/shopchapterbookstores.com\/products\/auto-biography-a-classic-car-an-outlaw-motorhead-and-57-years-of-the-american-dream","provider":"Chapter One","version":"1.0","type":"link"}