Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America's Supercarriers – Virginia Steelworkers Forge the World's Most Powerful Naval Weapon

"Kennedy in 2011...He conveys the physical and mental toll of their work, which often takes place hundreds of feet in the air or in below-deck cabins 'just a bit bigger than a coffin' and requires mastering new technologies and meeting difficult deadlines despite bad weather...Fabey also empathetically portrays the workers' fears of layoffs, illnesses, injuries, and mistakes, as well as the satisfaction they take in contributing to the national defense...This poignant portrait of working-class life will appeal to fans of Studs Terkel."

"Newport News Shipbuilding has been in business for a long time, constructing commercial and military ships at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay...In times past, the work was piecemeal, highly specialized, and clumsily coordinated, 'leading to delays, misinterpretations, and production miscues'...These days, writes Fabey, much of the work of shipbuilding has shifted to the digital realm, leading to fewer such problems...Still, as he notes, there are plenty of other hurdles and headaches attendant in building a warship, especially in light of the fact that China is now floating an aircraft carrier (bought, ironically, from Ukraine), that add urgency to the work...Fabey's storyline plods at times, especially in technical matters...Even so, the text is a definitively thorough portrait of how a ship comes into being...In the hands of a John McPhee, the tale would have more zip, but it's clear that a fitting amount of hard work and thought went into it, as befits the complex nature of the subject...A sometimes labored but deep-diving contribution to marine engineering and transportation history."