In the Rings of Saturn Book

In this compelling, readable narrative, Joe Sherman explores virtually every aspect of the Saturn project, America's biggest and most publicized industrial success of the last decade. Here is the whole story—Saturn's mysterious beginnings inside General Motors in 1982; the site hunt that involved 38 states and ended in Spring Hill, Tennessee; the plant's construction and the transfer of 5,000 UAW members to a historic Southern backwater; and finally the small car's triumph in the marketplace (Consumer Reports and J.D. Powers both dubbed Saturn a made-in-America breakthrough)—all woven together into a candid, panoramic tapestry.
In the Rings of Saturn has a striking immediacy: the reader sees almost first-hand GM's 1991 Annual Meeting at the Grand Ole Opry led by chairman Robert Stempel, as gadfly stockholders turn the event into a parody. We spend a week on the crankshaft machining line under the care of paternal, bearlike teamleader Bob Courtemanche, experiencing Saturn's revolutionary but troubled team structure. We even drive around with Spring Hill's flamboyant, tobacco-spitting mayor George Jones, who tells Sherman that the difference between a "Yankee" and a "damned Yankee" is "a Yankee comes here and goes home; a damned Yankee stays." Dozens of characters, from local farmers, to inspired assembly line workers, to "car smarts and gut feel" engineers, move across these pages. Through these flesh-and-blood portraits, Sherman brings to life a very American story of renewal and growth, of great hope and soured expectations, of greed and lost opportunities. And he reveals as well the downside of the project—that while the car itself is a triumph, the project has failed to provide either the learning laboratory General Motors needed or a model for positive redevelopment rural America yearns for.
In the Rings of Saturn is both the anatomy of a corporate triumph and an incisive commentary on industrial renewal in the United States. And it exposes the high hopes and earthshattering disappointments that occur when big business appears in rural areas. It is a volume that will enlighten business readers, inform the automotive industry, and entertain Saturn car buyers, many of whom will think: "My little car means all this?"

Publishers Weekly

The Saturn Corp. was formed by General Motors in 1985 to build a quality American small car that could compete with the Japanese imports. Sherman ( The House at Shelborne Farms ) offers a step-by-step account of the progress of Saturn Corporation from its inception through the company's first two years of production. The most compelling sections deal with the widely publicized impact the building of the Saturn factory had on rural Maury County, Tenn., and on the town of Spring Hill in particular. Sherman covers fully how the people working at Saturn feel about what was supposed to be a company that would revolutionize American car manufacturing. This readable study is not for car nuts--although there is plenty of information about how the Saturn production process works--but rather for readers interested in the history of what so far seems a qualified modern-day industrial success story. While Saturn achieved many of its goals, its future within GM is uncertain and the company suffered a setback when approximately 380,000 cars were recalled this summer (the recall is not covered in the book). (Nov.)