For more than two decades, Hilary Peach worked as a transient welder, and one of the only women, in the Boilermakers Union. Distilled from a vast cache of journals, notes, and keen observations, Thick Skin follows Peach from the West Coast shipyards and pulp mills of British Columbia, through the Alberta tar sands and the Ontario rust belt, to the colossal power generating stations of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. At times edging up to the surreal, Thick Skin is a collection of strange stories carefully told, in tenderness and ferocity, for anyone who has spent time in a trade, or is curious about the unseen world of industrial construction.
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- 314
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Half Title Page 2
- Title Page 4
- Copyright Page 5
- CONTENTS 6
- FOREWORD 8
- PART 1: BOOMING OUT 12
- The Shipyard 14
- Lightning 24
- Miss Lonely 32
- Montana 40
- Sorry for Your Luck 46
- Sacrifice Zone 58
- The Gun 68
- Women and Children 74
- Eyes Open 84
- Barbed Wire 94
- PART 2: SEE YOU ON THE NEXT ONE 102
- Pennsylvania 104
- Michigan 130
- Nanticoke 144
- Fort McMurray 160
- The Lakes 180
- Nova Scotia 190
- PART 3: PULLING THE PIN 202
- The Wolf 204
- The Money Box 218
- Sulphur 226
- Sourdough 236
- Acid Test 242
- I Wouldn’t Take You with Me 258
- Thick Skin 264
- Field Notes 272
- Good Alternatives to Bad Motels 282
- Make Work 290
- Pulling the Pin 298
- Epilogue 310
- Sources 313
- Acknowledgments 314
- About the Author 315
