American Rust: A Novel

Following in the literary footsteps of John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy, Philipp Meyer’s American Rust (2010) explores the catastrophic effects of economic devastation on the lives of six characters in Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley, once home to a thriving steel and coal industry (and a solid-middle class) but now populated by broken lives and shuttered businesses. The novel was a winner of the Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and one of Newsweek’s “Best. Books. Ever.” American Rust was also made into a Showtime television series.

Plot Summary

Isaac English, desperate to escape both a dying town and the burden of caring for his injured father, steals $4,000 of his father’s pension and heads out of town, hoping to hop a freight train to California and enroll in college. He convinces his friend, former high school football star Billy Poe, to accompany him at least as far as the rail yard. On the way, they stop to rest at an abandoned machine shop where they encounter three itinerant, threatening men: Otto, Jesus, and Murray. When the men claim the shop is theirs, Isaac wants to leave, but Poe, feeling territorial, doesn’t want to be pushed around.