Autopsy of an Engine and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant
Reviews

The Buffalo News:
“These stories evoke a lost world, populated by wonderfully vivid and memorable characters—Big George, Garlic Baloney Joe, Fabulous Freddy, Crazy Marge, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Peanut Man, Dancing John. It’s a rich and complicated world, an American microcosm, heartbreaking and funny, harsh and tender, full of both danger and magic. . . . Together, the machinery and the workers create a complex music that Hernandez’s perfect ear and poetic voice beautifully captures. . . what is celebrated in this book, is the spirit of the workers. Autopsy of an Engine is a hymn to them, that raucous and spirited multi-cultural family of American heroes: men and women working and taking pride in their work, loving and feuding and singing and telling stories-and dreaming, always dreaming.”

Ann Arbor News:
“This book is sure to resonate with many people who have spent time in or around the auto industry... The stories are beautifully crafted tributes to the people who worked on Detroit’s Cadillac assembly line before the factory closed in 1994. ... In these reality-inspired but fictional stories, Hernandez writes about pistons, sparkplugs, belts, accidents, friendships, love and life. Readers will feel like they’ve entered the author’s world of the Cadillac plant, and come out smarter and richer for the experience.”

El Paso Times:
“Lolita Hernandez, a former Cadillac plant worker, makes her notable debut with an endearing story collection, set mostly inside a Detroit auto factory, about the complex lives behind the machinery that produces the flawless luxury car. ... When there isn’t talk, there’s singing, or flights of fancy, but always speech and thought intertwine with ‘the squeaks and moans and brrrrraps, and taptaptaptaps and clinks and rrrrrrrrrs,’ creating a unique auditory experience...The ethnicities and stories of the crew at the Detroit auto factory are as varied as the roles they have in the production line of a Cadillac. Hernandez has gathered an exquisite representation in Autopsy of an Engine. Though the writing never slips into sentimentality, it is difficult not to become attached to this struggling population of workers who build vehicles that few of them can afford.”

Pluma Fronteriza:
“Lolita [Hernandez] gives us the autopsy of an engine with incredible detail. The reader will find himself right there standing on the pallet, looking for the three-legged rat distracted by the heavy sounds of machinery, or standing there with a handful of Abbie's pound cake and hot coffee.”

Ruth Reichl:
“Autopsy of an Engine is the most surprising love story I've read all year. The workers in the Cadillac factory who populate this book may not be related, but in the hands of the amazing Lolita Hernandez they become one moving multicultural family. Writing with tenderness and humor she gives voice to the piston crew and the timing chain women, the foremen and the chassis line. Some of these stories just break your heart. I stayed up all night reading and for weeks afterward Abbie, who brought a ghost factory back to life, haunted my dreams. This is a passionate cry from the factory floor, a story you can't forget from a voice that has not been heard before.”

Richard Rodriguez:
“In her account of the closing of the Clark Street facility of the Cadillac Motor Company, Lolita Hernandez positions herself at the intersection of journalism and literature. Here is not only a report from the assembly line, brilliantly told. This is also a talented writer's record of loss, a poet’s meditation from inside the working place.”

Bob Antoni:
“Ever been sweet-talked by a GM 8-cylinder motor? Ever seen a piston assembly line do the conga? ... [Hernandez’s] stories ring like the ‘engine-room’ of a Trinidad steel band: pam-pa-tam-pa-tam-pam-pam. You’ll be dancing beneath the flickering fluorescents!”

Tony Ardizzone:
“Autopsy of an Engine, by Lolita Hernandez, is both dazzling and heartbreaking, a gritty love song about working class Americans and the pulse and rhythms of factory life. With its Latina perspective, this marvelous debut puts Hernandez in the company of Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo and Sandra Cisneros. A riveting and quite moving collection.”