Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory [Paperback]

Mickey Hess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 11, 2008

Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory is about choosing what you want to be when you grow up, and finding out you still have to wait tables on the weekends. The book follows one year in the life of an adjunct instructor who takes on side jobs as an ice cream man, stand-up comedian, haunted house character, and Billy Graham Crusader.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's a light-hearted look dealing with that period in life when you have to go from being a reckless youth to an adult, without sacrificing anything. That's hard to do and for some people it just paralyzes them." -- James Furbush, The Sly Oyster

Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory is an absolute winner, exploring the difficulties and trials of finding a job, facing a lifetime of work, and searching for meaning somewhere within that work. Mickey Hess writes with truthful insights and rip-roaring hilarity. The fact that it is non-fiction only makes the book that much more important and engaging. -- Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned

Like White Noise, without the angst or postmodernism. -- Al Burian, author of Burn Collector

Mickey Hess has taken his experiences as a struggling writing instructor and made them into a wry, picaresque novel. Thoroughly humorous. -- Cleveland Plain-Dealer

Mickey Hess makes you want to move to Kentucky and hang out and write poetry for the rest of your life. -- David Amram, author of Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac

Underground publishing advocate Mickey Hess uses deadpan humor and pungent observations to describe the price he pays for pursuing a passion -- teach college students how to write. -- Chicago Reader, which awarded Big Wheel "Critics Choice"

From the Back Cover

When Mickey Hess discovers that he can list his experience as a college instructor on an application to work as an ice cream man -- and still get the job -- he starts to wonder if being a professor has lost its prestige. With college enrollment and tuition costs at record highs, universities are staffing their courses with part-time instructors who commute between different schools to make a living. Big Wheel follows one year in the life of an adjunct instructor who takes on side jobs as an ice cream man, stand-up comedian, haunted house character, and Billy Graham Crusader. The jobs begin out of financial necessity, but become more of a diversion from a teaching career that Hess fears he is starting to take far more seriously than this employers are taking him.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Garrett County Press (July 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891053078
• ISBN-13: 978-1891053078
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,246,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mickey Hess is the author of The Novelist and the Rapper, The Nostalgia Echo,
Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide, Icons of Hip Hop, and Is Hip Hop Dead? He is an Associate Professor of English at Rider University.

His articles on hip hop and related topics have been published in Popular Music and Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdiscplinary Study of Literature, Computers & Composition, and Composition Studies. His stories and essays have been published in Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: Best of McSweeney's Humor Category, Hawaii Review, Punk Planet, Ninth Letter, Pear Noir!, Quick Fiction, Front Porch, and others.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and Insightful, October 10, 2008

By 

D. Breier (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory (Paperback)

Technically a memoir, but also a look at jobs, decisions, dreams, influences and how to find meaning. The period this book covers is approximately 2000-2002, where Mickey finds himself in his post-college days with part-time teaching jobs, but also random gigs as an ice cream truck driver, stand-up comedian, and arcade attendant. He pokes fun at the colleges he works at, just as he does the "ridiculous" jobs. He is caught between a job he almost seems afraid to care about and those that amuse him. For our generation, and I am going to assume Mickey and I are almost exactly the same age, work has a different place in our lives. We know that bad things happen to good employees and that most people change jobs (and careers) repeatedly these days. We've watched jobs shipped overseas, fear layoffs, and seen how corporations have kept the minimum wage ridiculously low. We are a generation of cynics, but what happens when cynics find jobs with meaning? What happens when you find that you can't keep up the façade of youth and irresponsibility forever? The book is insightful, but also funny as hell. The scene where they are housesitting and a friend breaks the toilet tank in the middle of the night made me laugh out loud. Mickey has great comedic timing with a deadpan delivery. Highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining, thought-provoking read, October 21, 2008

By 

Jason L. Jordan (New Albany, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory (Paperback)

Ever wonder what an adjunct professor does when he's not teaching? If so--and c'mon, you know you do--look no further than Mickey Hess's memoir "Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory." Reading about Hess moonlighting as an ice cream man, carnival ride operator, haunted house participant, and many others, is great fun, but poignant too, insofar as his side jobs lead him to question his life, occupation, relationships, and the motivations behind each. Overall, this one's a winner for sure.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How do you spell uncomfprtable?, December 8, 2005

By 

Brandon J Mounce (Camp Arifjan, Kuwait) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big wheel at the cracker factory (Paperback)

This book is a wishlist. This book is all about the secret dreams we have. This book is anathema to books like "nickel and dimed". This is a book where you can screw over your desperate lower middle class bosses, who cream to browbeat you.