Paul Clemens, Doubleday (271 pages, $25.95)
Paul Clemens’ blackly comic journal chronicles what often happens after a U.S. factory shuts down: Its equipment is auctioned off and shipped to countries where labor is cheaper.
The Budd Detroit Automotive Plant once employed almost 10,000 people, Clemens says. By the time the plant’s closing was announced in 2006, it was down to about 350 employees and owned by ThyssenKrupp AG.
Clemens observed the sale, dismemberment and exit of the plant’s equipment from early June 2007 to late April 2008.
Clemens turns his months inside Budd into a disturbing look at the decline of America’s working class. It’s the story of a “reverse life cycle,” he says.
Though Clemens strives to keep an open mind, he remains passionate about his hometown and gets impatient with how outsiders perceive it.
As I closed this admirable and original piece of reporting, I felt numb. James Pressley, Bloomberg News
