Motor City

by Bill Morris

As the 500,000th 1954 Buick rolls off the assembly line, love affairs, espionage, good fellowship, and bad business proceed as usual in the leader of the free world, Detroit

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

337 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Born in 1952.

Reviews

[MattA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good prose and good characters -- plot somewhat overstuffed.

The core of the story are the designers and executives of GM's Buick Division in 1954. The author follows their efforts to bring the Buick Wildcat to life, set the annual sales record with the '54 Buick Century, and track down a traitor in their midst. The plot never really seems to take off, probably because of all the baggage that the author drapes on it.

Here's just a sample of who and what you'll encounter:

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio
Elvis Presley
Miles Davis
Ornette Coleman
The bombing of Hiroshima
The founding of McDonald's
America's first involvement in Vietnam
The CIA, conspiracy theories, and Central America intervention
The McCarthy hearings
Ike and Maimie
Nabokov and Lolita
Jack Kerouac and On the Road
Levittown

In a book ostensibly about the automobile industry, the author drags in a lot of tangential threads connected to these and many other cultural touchstones. And they aren't just brief references or name drops, but full chapters. Some are directly relevant to the central story line and characters (Marilyn Monroe and the bombing of Hiroshima) while others seem like sloppily pasted-on interludes (McDonalds and Elvis Presley). I suppose the author's intent was to make the novel more about America in the 1950's than the automobile industry

There are enough Detroit-specific references to entice local readers: Olympia, the Red Wings, Oakland Hills, the Tech Center, Hamtramck, J.P. McCarthy, Eight Mile, Motown, Selfridge, Lake St. Clair, Corktown, the Shrine of the Little Flower, the Battle of the Overpass, and Woodward Avenue. But for the most part these aren't central to the story.

I found the author's recasting of Harley Earl as "Harvey Pearl" rather distracting. I kept wondering how true his storyline was to his real life, or if it was pure fiction.

Despite all that, this was a fairly easy and entertaining read. Just enjoy the scenery along the way and don't expect it to take you anywhere.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Morris writes an amazing tale of 1954—but it would be better, I think, had he stuck with the subject matter his title implied, “Motor City”. The characters he follows through the Buick’s 1954 Century campaign are all able to hold up the narrative on their own, but instead, they’re treated almost like time travelers from the present wandering around 1954 trying to accidentally meet future stars. Ray Kroc, Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, and more. This isn’t a spoiler because they’re inconsequential to the plot, except to derail it. Every time we meet a new character and the new character gets described oddly, I start wondering, well, what future star is that? Is it Alan Ginsberg? Is this name supposed to mean something?

And the characters think like time travelers, too, knowing what the big stories are going to be in the next decade and worrying over them, not because they’re part of the story but because…

Which sounds like I hated the book, but I loved it. Morris is a great writer and he overcomes these weaknesses with deft characterization and unobtrusive writing.

[Freddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having bought this for 20 pence at my local library purely on the basis of its title and blurb, I read and enjoyed this book late last year. At the time I remember searching for it on Goodreads and being surprised by the fact it had no reviews. Now, a year later, parts of the book - certain details, encounters, feelings - still come back to me. To my mind this is a classic sign of a good book; one that, beyond standing the test of time, naturally and unobtrusively weaves its way into your subconscious until the point comes where you realise that in a way it has altered some part of you.

Morris (whose work I am otherwise ignorant of) writes neatly here and very nicely ties up his various strands of plot. Fans of E. L. Doctorow's entwining of historical fact and fiction will enjoy Morris's similar approach. Here we have cameos from a handful of great American icons, and the result, thankfully, is intelligently candid and unpretentious. Biography of a Buick is an orderly all-rounder and I would definitely recommend it as an easy yet engaging read.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of Detroit, General Motors, version of "Mad Men" that takes place in a single year, 1954. The plot centers around the men and women behind the Buick Century and involves corporate spying, theft of designs, affairs, gallons of alcohol and various existential crises. Back when America was "great" we had accepted womanizing, racism, homophobia and assorted abuses dished out throughout each stratum of society. Along the way our cast of characters interact with real life figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, Charlie Wilson, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Vladimir Nabokov, Ray Kroc, Ornette Coleman, Elvis Presley, Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac. By the end of the novel, you get the feeling that Bill Morris tried to squeeze just about every pop culture 50s icon into plot. If you're a mid-century history buff you probably will appreciate the novel more than the average reader. I liked it well enough. At times I wish the plot was a little tighter, taking fewer side trips along the way, but the ride was still fun.

[Christopher Key · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certain political parties in the US want to Make America Great Again. Like it was in 1954 and in all those Norman Rockwell illustrations. Of course, America was no greater then than it is now and Morris documents it in all its alcoholic, planned obsolescence, commie-hunting splendour. Focussed, obviously, on the auto industry, tailfins and chrome become the metaphor for an era. The crazed, no-limits optimism features cameos from Joe McCarthy and Ike, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. The book may have beautifully-captured characters, but it (and America)
is all about cars.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

(no 35 of 2021)
(re-read)

[Scott Breslove · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting little (ok maybe not so little) book. If it was a conversation instead of a book, you'd call the author a name dropper and probably hate them, but since it's a book, and a work of fiction at that, it seems more like a version of Forrest Gump set in 1950's Detroit. In that our fictional characters somehow managed to bump into every influential or up and coming "celebrity" of the time, from Ray Kroc to Nabokov to DiMaggio and Monroe to Elvis.
The plot was well crafted, the characters well designed. The book had a pretty torrid pace throughout, except that I felt the conclusion fell kinda flat. I'd be interested to see if there is a sequel...do they call the next book in a series that?, but anyway, if so I'd like to pick it up and continue the adventure. It was a fun look into a time that I was not around for and don't know too much about. Very enjoyable.

[Will Lashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Morris is a funny guy, and this romp through a torrid love affair set in the auto design department of Buick during the mid 1950s is as sleek and bold as a Dagmar bumper guard. Published in England by Penguin Books as 'Biography Of A Buick', the book veers, skids and accelerates through a name checked pantheon of the period's hot and cool icons before bearing down on the beast inside the machine back in Detroit. Back then they made cars fast and sexy, so beat it on down the line and get a copy of 'Motor City' to get fast and sexy your own self!

[David Wrubel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, light, funny, easy beach reading about a unique time in US social history.