AUGUST 2014 - AudioFile
Bassett Furniture Company in Virginia was once prominent in the production of wood furniture—until Chinese factories began flooding the American market with more cheaply priced goods. Kristin Kalbli’s pleasant narration guides the listener through the ins and outs of the Bassetts’ story—family history in the first half of the work segues into John Bassett III’s attempt to fight offshoring and save jobs in the struggling Blue Ridge Mountain region. Kalbli’s use of accents to portray Bassett family members and other locals helps to set the scene. She sensitively depicts the plight of displaced workers as well as “JBIII’s” determination to preserve the local way of life. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Mimi Swartz
…thick with rich characters, family secrets and backwoods wisdom…Macy's passion and enthusiasm are palpable on every page…her chronicle of this quest is important because she makes a complex, now universal story understandable. Macy cares about ordinary Americans in the same way Bassett does, and in the same way so many Wall Street players and corporate shareholders do not.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
Beth Macy…understood how lucky she was when she accidentally uncovered the great, gripping story told in Factory Man. This is Ms. Macy's first book, but it's in a class with other runaway debuts like Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers: These nonfiction narratives are more stirring and dramatic than most novels. And Ms. Macy writes so vigorously that she hooks you instantly. You won't be putting this book down.
Publishers Weekly
★ 03/17/2014
In her first book, winner of the 2013 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, Roanoke Times reporter Macy explores the effects of globalization on America’s furniture manufacturing industry via the story of the Bassetts, a family from Virginia, whose Bassett Furniture Company was once the world’s largest producer of wooden furniture. In the 1980s, cheap Chinese imports began to flood the U.S. market, prompting many domestic furniture makers to move their factories abroad. But John Bassett III fought back. A “larger-than-life rule breaker,” J.B. III (as he was known) hired top trade lawyer Joe Dorn and convinced members of the U.S. furniture manufacturing industry to support him in filing a petition against China for unfair trade practices, ultimately saving his company, Vaughan-Bassett (an offshoot of the family business), along with hundreds of jobs. Macy’s riveting narrative is rich in local color. It traces the history of the Bassett family and the U.S. furniture trade, from the “billowing smokestacks” of Southern towns along Route 58 to the imposing factory complex near Dalian, China, and eventually to Vietnam and Indonesia, where manufacturers sought ever-cheaper labor. Macy interviews the Bassett family, laid-off and retired workers, executives in Asia, and many others, providing vivid reporting and lucid explanations of the trade laws and agreements that caused a way of life to disappear. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (July)
From the Publisher
"A bracing saga.... Macy is an engaging writer."—Michael Boodro, Elle Decor
"It's a must-read just for its look at what happens at home when we send jobs overseas and how we all play a role. This one is a page-turner."—DesignSponge
"A triumph.... Get Factory Man and take your time with it. It's a big ol' delicious toasted sandwich of a book."—Kurt Rheinheimer, The Roanoker
"I've been reading Beth Macy for years. She is a great American writer. She sees everything, all the precious detail. A few years back, as the world was collapsing around us, she did a story on the temp who was answering phones at a hotline for those in financial hot water. The temp was this immense hero in all these ways that nobody else would have ever recognized. Of course, Macy never called her a hero. She just let the story do the work."—Roland Lazenby, author of Michael Jordan
Beth Macy "got the story of a lifetime. And she wrote this book in the "Seabiscuit" tradition, combining the power of truth-that's-stranger-than-fiction with the colorful verve of a novel."—Janet Maslin, New York Times
AUGUST 2014 - AudioFile
Bassett Furniture Company in Virginia was once prominent in the production of wood furniture—until Chinese factories began flooding the American market with more cheaply priced goods. Kristin Kalbli’s pleasant narration guides the listener through the ins and outs of the Bassetts’ story—family history in the first half of the work segues into John Bassett III’s attempt to fight offshoring and save jobs in the struggling Blue Ridge Mountain region. Kalbli’s use of accents to portray Bassett family members and other locals helps to set the scene. She sensitively depicts the plight of displaced workers as well as “JBIII’s” determination to preserve the local way of life. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-06-15
The story of one man’s fight to save American furniture manufacturing jobs in the face of a deluge of cheap Chinese imports.In this welcome debut, winner of the 2013 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award,Roanoke Timesreporter Macy brings to life the rise of family-owned Bassett Furniture Company as the world’s largest producer of wooden furniture and John Bassett III’s epic struggle to keep his company in business amid unfair overseas business practices that forced many U.S. manufacturers to move their factories abroad. A brash, patriotic charmer fond of quoting George Patton (“When in doubt, ATTACK”), Bassett came from a long line of wealthy Virginians with “sawdust” in their veins. “The ‘fucking Chi-Comms’ were not going to tellhimhow to make furniture!” remarked one retailer. Drawing on prodigious research and interviews with a wide range of subjects, including babysitters, retired workers and Chinese executives, Macy recounts how Bassett, now in his mid-70s, mobilized the majority of American furniture manufacturers to join him in seeking U.S. government redress for unfair Chinese trade practices. The author’s brightly written, richly detailed narrative not only illuminates globalization and the issue of offshoring, but succeeds brilliantly in conveying the human costs borne by low-income people displaced from a way of life—i.e., factory jobs that their Appalachian families had worked for generations. Writing with much empathy, Macy gives voice to former workers who must now scrape by on odd jobs, disability payments and, in some cases, thievery of copper wire from closed factories. Her book is also a revealing account of the paternalistic Bassett dynasty, whose infighting was a constant diversion for everyone living in the company town. Ultimately, Bassett’s efforts saved some 700 jobs and his Vaughan-Bassett company, the nation’s largest wood bedroom furniture maker.A masterly feat of reporting.
