The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks

<p>Of the sixty million pickups on U.S. highways today just one in eight was bought for work purposes. The remaining fifty-four million are what truck dealers call lifestyle purchases. Does the pickup impulse spring from some deep organic longing? For agrarian roots for simpler times for a driving experience larger than life?</p><p><em>The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks</em> is a memoir about the complex role pickups have played in Fred Haefele's life and in American culture at large. Growing up near the GM truck plant in Flint Michigan young Haefele was delighted by these centaur-like vehicles. In his adult life as an arborist teacher and father pickups bore him through hard times and disaster high adventure triumph and love. Through his tenure with twelve trucks Haefele recounts his experiences with tree climbing and academia masculinity and motor culture.</p><p>For Haefele pickup trucks hold a unique place in the American psyche--equal parts fantasy steed and dray horse they're avatars of the American spirit. <em>The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks</em> is like his trucks uniquely free-spirited: love story blue-collar writer's tale and motor-head memoir. </p><p></p><p><strong>Fred Haefele</strong> is a writer teacher and retired arborist. He is the author of the award-winning motorcycle memoir <em>Rebuilding the Indian</em> (Bison Books 2005) and the nonfiction collection <em>Extremophilia</em>. Haefele's work has appeared in <em>Outside</em> <em>Wired</em> the <em>New York Times Magazine</em> Salon.com <em>Montana Magazine</em> and other venues and he has written documentaries for the PBS American Experience series. He lives in Missoula Montana with his wife Caroline Patterson.</p><p></p>