American Rust: A Novel

“Being dead didn’t excuse your responsibility to the ones still alive.”

Isaac ponders the eventual implosion of the sun and the destruction of the Earth, musing that “the physicists […] were the ones who would save people” (5). While Isaac knows he will be long dead by the time this happens, he hopes to make a contribution, however small, to the salvation of the human race. In a figurative context, Isaac is also referring to his mother’s suicide and how it has scarred his entire family. This quote suggests that while Isaac comes to understand her reasons, those reasons don’t excuse her responsibilities to her husband and children.

“Yes he thought this is what girls must feel like when a stranger puts hands on them. Not a feeling that goes away in a hurry.”

Poe experiences the trauma of sexual assault at the hands of two drifters in an abandoned machine shop. Now, freezing in the bushes outside his trailer, he thinks about what might have been if it wasn’t for his friend’s rescue. Poe, who has slept with his share of women in high school and beyond, has never given much thought to what women experience at the hands of aggressive men. He now considers both the emotional pain of the moment and the lasting effects in the long term.