The Betsy is a story of the early 1970s when competition in the US automobile industry was very cut-throat. The American Auto companies were facing the heat from Japanese auto makers who were making low cost cars. In this environment, Loren Hardemann 1, in his early 90s, aspires to build a car named’The Betsy’, named after his great-grand daughter. It was a challenging task which his grandson Loren Hardemann 3 did not agree with.
This story is narrated by a character called Angelo Perino who used to be a race car driver and was also a graduate in automobile engineering. In his childhood, he had become very close to Loren Hardemann 1. Mr. Hardemann had picked Angelo Perino to head the Betsy project as his grandson was not too keen on it.
The story keeps fluctuating from the present to the flashbacks. It is narrated beautifully in very simple language. It does not use heavy literary language and purists have deemed it belonging to the trash genre. However, I am not a purist and I appreciate the writer’s use of commonly used english and slang.
Also, I must warn you that the narration has taken a lot of liberties not only with the language but also during the description of various sexual encounters from time to time. It provides for good erotic reading too if you are not too uptight about it.
The writer describes how Hardemann the first built the auto company, how he had problems with his son Hardemann the second earlier and Hardemann the third during the present. He hated the fact that the company had gradually moved from an auto company to an auto spare parts company. The hero, Angelo Perino and his retired engineer Mr. Duncan take it upon themselves to make the company an automobile company again using acute business sense and path-breaking technological innovations. This book would also be a good read if you are interested in automobiles.
I have given the story 4/5 above because I did not like the ending. It would otherwise have easily got a 5/5 from me. However, the narration or the readability gets 5/5. The characterization is superb. A to-the-point book which could be a welcome change from literarily proficient novels.