American Rust

American Rust

Philipp Meyer

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had to return Meyer’s The Son to the library and that even though I wanted to write about it, I just couldn't do it without the book in front of me.  Well, my friend (and fellow reader) Gaff fixed that particular problem when he purchased American Rust, Meyer’s first novel, and lent it to me.

It’s a good feeling, isn't it, to start a novel that you are almost sure you are going to enjoy?  It’s like playing a new U2 album for the first time or ordering the spaghetti at the (Youngstown shout-out!) Boulevard Tavern:  I am predisposed to enjoy it because it’s a relatively known quantity that I've enjoyed before. The flaw in my logic, of course, is that I've listened to thousands of hours of U2 and had dozens of plates of pasta at the Boulevard.  Those are large sample sizes.  With Meyer, I had only the one novel, The Son.    But here’s the thing:  The Son is so sprawling and epic and bloody and purposeful that it can’t be ignored.  Obviously, I’m not the only one who noticed this – The Son is receiving many great reviews and, based on rumors, is said to be in the running for this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction.   I didn't know Philipp Meyer before I saw The Son listed on theTournament of Books site, but after reading it I was ready to read anything else he had written.  And that includes, of course, his first novel American Rust.

(One personal note here.  My dad was not the reader my mom is, but he enjoyed certain books.  I think he would have loved The Son.  He actually used to tell us that he was kidnapped by Indians as a kid and grew to be accepted by the tribe.  That is exactly what happens in The Son!  And a good chunk of the book takes place in Texas, where he spent more than a few years.  Many books make me think of my mom or my brothers and sisters, but The Son was the first book in a long time that made me think of my dad).

So to regroup:  I sat down believing I was going to like American Rust.  And I was right.  It’s a very different story in scope and setting than The Son:  Set in a Rust Belt Pennsylvania town, it tells the story of five or six characters who are trying to understand and overcome what has become of their once-bustling city and their suddenly makeshift personal lives.  Two high-school buddies, Isaac and Billy, are at the center of the plot (a run-in with vagrants leads to violence) but even though the novel is a page-turner, it is the evocation of place and character that you will remember once you’re done with it. 

The characters are especially memorable.  Despite the gutting of the steel businesses that ordered their lives, most of the characters in American Rust are imbued with a strong sense of humanity.  Additionally, most of the characters, despite the myriad personal problems that low employment and low wages usher in, are thoughtful and introspective.   By switching the narrative point of view for each chapter, Meyer allows multiple characters to tell their story, letting them express their full and sometimes flawed humanity in their interior dialogues.  This has the moving effect of peeling back the outer shell of pride, or bravado, or ambition, or confidence– or whatever mask these characters wear for the world – to display the thoughtful and worried and complicated and bruised people underneath.  The people of the Rust Belt have sometimes felt discarded, abandoned like the out-of-date coke plants and machine shops they used to run, but that doesn't happen in American Rust.  For Meyer, and the reader, these characters matter.  They have importance. 

Maybe this is why, even though these characters aren't perfect by any stretch, we root for them, even in the face of despair.  We root for them because Meyer reminds us that everybody matters, and we are rewarded by finding out that even in the face of despair, there is hope.

I’d recommend The Son or American Rust without hesitation.  Once you read one, you’ll want to read the other.