John William’s writing is engaging and, in moments, truly beautiful, cutting to the core of the the human condition. This passage on love is one of the most popular in the book;

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”

Pressure Machine is an elegiac tribute to working class people. It vividly describes complicated, dignified lives amidst scenes of despair and hopelessness. It takes commonplace, even derided struggles, and turns them into songs of beauty, pain, and romance. The lyrics, outwardly simple, carry profound depth.