American Rust

by Philipp Meyer

Book Overview

NOW A HIT STREAMING SERIES - A "bold, absorbing novel" (The New York Times Book Review) of the lost American dream, the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love that arise from its loss, and two young men, bound to their hometown, who crave an escape.

"Powerful . . . gripping . . . in the tradition that stretches from Ernest Hemingway to Cormac McCarthy."--The Washington Post

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times Book...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385527527
• ISBN13: 9780385527521
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Very off topic

This story started off exciting but it went south fast. Too much writing about the minute details of the characters. I stopped reading it because there became too much discussion about abuse and molestation.

American Rust

Sometimes why an author writes a book is just as important as what the book is about. American Rust is a story about two young men, Poe and Issac who are coming of age in a blue collar Pennsylvania steel town. Times are hard, the steel mills have shut down, the older residents are giving up and giving in to just surviving. The younger residents of Buell either accept their fate or leave without looking back. This book deals with what happens to us when our dreams are shattered, when all that is left is the people we really are without comfort of daily routine or the promise of a paycheck. Something happens, someone one is killed, an act of self defense but immaturity leads the two boys to try and hide the evidence, when a small act of courage could have saved everyone a whole lot of worry and regret. Will Issac and Poe rise above their situation? Will they rise above the urban blight that threatens to drag them down into indifference or despair?

Must Read

Meyer's American Rust is an amazing debut novel: an always engaging story of the radiating consequences of a crime told in shifting semi-stream-of-consciousness perspectives that give us brilliantly realized characters all yearning for some kind of escape and all the more heartbreaking for their inability to do so. Aptly set in a former booming steel region of Pennsylvania, it seems a kind of post coming-of-age story -- the aftermath of the collision of the potential of youth with the complicated reality of adulthood, in which the ties of family and friendship can just as often shackle as support you, and dreams of escape and advancement all too often remain only that. Some here are in the process of wrestling with this while others have long ago weakened -- aspirations festering into bitterness, and escape now found in self-destruction. It's a bleak story, but deeply absorbing and, in the end, not without hope. I highly recommend this one and look forward to Meyer's future work.

Highly Recommend

I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of American Rust, a powerful debut novel and a rare find: compelling literary fiction with the engine of a gripping thriller. The story of the fallout of a murder on a group of connected characters is set in an economically depressed region of Pennsylvania whose struggle, like so many of these people, is all the more difficult in the (often literal) shadow of its former greatness and promise. And that's what Meyer does so well here, beyond creating a engrossing page-turner -- we get to know all of these terrifically realized characters through their perspective, and those intimate portraits web together to give us something bigger: the complex relationship between people and place, individuals and community. And though the characters are all bound by this dying town and the blowback of the crime that affects them all, the division of the story into these individual perspectives gives a real sense of their isolation; the characters might find salvation in each other, if they could only communicate their need for it. American Rust is an overall outstanding read from a major new talent.

An Experience That Comes Back to Haunt You

I was privileged to receive an advance readers copy of American Rust. As the characters developed I found myself intrigued by the choices we make in life that take us where we go. The writing is dramatic, the plot intense and the story compelling. I can't believe this is Philipp Meyer's first novel. I know it sounds corny, but reading American Rust I was struck with the thought that if you had a little Cormac McCarthy, Hemingway and Steinbeck--you'd have Philipp Meyer. I highly recommend this book to anyone who reads books for their literary value and who value the imagery that creates the type of experience that comes back to haunt you long after you've read the last sentence and closed the book.