Solange De Santis was raised to occupy the clean world of white-collar work. Her accomplished immigrant father and her glamorous fashion-writer mother assumed, from De Santis's first steps, that she would strive to live up to their high expectations. And for many years De Santis did, moving from one secure journalism job to another. But just as her career track became thoroughly grooved, De Santis left it all to work on the assembly line at General Motors.

In Life on the Line, she recounts in vivid detail just how and why she undertook this path of seemingly reverse ambition. Life on the Line is a gritty account of a world that too many of us shy from acknowledging, even as we accept the keys to our new cars. Completely candid, and as unexpectedly poignant as it is funny, this memoir will change the way we view the man-made products on which we all depend.