Customer Reviews

American Rust: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle)

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

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.

As my four regular readers can attest, I do not have much good to say about the contemporary novelists held in high regard by literary critics and prize juries. As a rule, I don't trust the taste of book critics. Too many have joined the Cult of the Sentence, deeming that fiction best that piles up the most standout sentences, imagery and "lyrical" language, the accumulated weight of which apparently makes a novel literature with a capital L. It's been a long time since I picked up a book from the New Fiction shelf at the bookstore, read the first page and walked to the register with it. The triumph of style over story in modern literary fiction leaves me cold, bitter and buying classics.

Then I read a couple of reviews of American Rust. (Yes, I still do read reviews, even the New York Times Book Review, hoping against all evidence for change, going back again and again like an abused spouse.) The only thing in the reviews that got me looking for the novel was the subject matter: the effect of industrial collapse on America workers. Being from a long line of working class rednecks, I decided to give another new author a chance based on that alone.

And I'm glad I did. Philipp Meyer has produced a book that, by the end, had me comparing his novel to Richard Wright's Native Son and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Like them, he masterfully weaves into the story the socioeconomic and political pressures that bear on the lives of his characters without preaching, without beating us over the head with a morality tale. Yet you can't come away from it without knowing in your bones the corrosive effects of industrial decline on the lives of his working class characters. He has deep sympathy for all of his characters, the "good" and the "bad." Each character has their own trajectory, and Meyer makes it inseparable from what sent them in the direction they take.

While Meyer does have one stylistic quirk I found annoying--he sometimes drops commas and periods that interrupt the natural flow of his sentences--for the most part the writing is straight forward, lacking the self-conscious poetic flourishes so much a part of contemporary literary writing. His prose serves the story rather than call attention to the author.

Buy American Rust. Don't take it out of the library. The author deserves the royalty, and I don't say that about many authors these days. I look forward to more Philipp Meyer.

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.

As a Pittsburgh native who watched the collapse of the steel industry, I thought I'd find more in this book to relate to. The characters were well-drawn and sympathetic, but the plot seemed more melodramatic than necessary. The ending also left a lot to be desired; full resolution was obviously not possible, but a bit more information on what happened after the denouement would've been welcome (and no, it's not the sort of book that lends itself to a sequel). I can't say I'm sorry I read it, but on the other hand I have other books in my to-read stack that I wish I'd gotten to first.

Easily the best book I've read through Vine so far, AMERICAN RUST stands out for its strong sense of place and well-drawn characters. Buell, in southwestern Pennsylvania, is a blighted town marked by industrial and social decay. The town is dying -- and along with it a way of life -- and yet exerts a strong hold on its residents, who have trouble breaking free of its steely grasp and avoiding being pulled down with it. The ways out are few -- in this telling, college and jail feature prominently, the military peripherally -- and Meyer's characters all struggle with just what it means to live in Buell and imagine something else, somewhere else. It is a compelling vehicle for exploring the compromises and sacrifices life requires.

The book includes only a few missteps. The references to one character's haute literary tastes seemed a bit heavy-handed, a sign not so much of pretension as lack of confidence. But in a book as well conceived and well written as this, such missteps are minor indeed and are overshadowed by Meyer's sparse, often fragmented prose, the highlight of which is his highly charged but controlled descriptions of violence.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like Phil LaMarche's AMERICAN YOUTH, Russell Banks's AFFLICTION, and Daniel Woodrell's WINTER'S BONE.

This is a book of destiny. It is destined to be a popular book club selection. It is destined to be a major motion picture, which is a good way to explain the story.

In Hollywood terms American Rust is The Road meets The Grapes of Wrath meets Ordinary People meets The Deer Hunter, etc. It looks to leverage plot elements from each of these books and combine them into a compelling story. It's a book that I enjoyed reading, but often put it down for days at a time because the depth was not there to make me want to read more. It's a good story, but one that I will not last with me to the degree of the other books it tries to emulate.

The strength of the book is in its technical composition. It's a book that English classes will be able to dissect and analyze for its technical elements. That is my primary criticism of the book; it's a good story but is one that is highly structured, very formulaic and almost engineered to fit into the book club/movie industrial complex. American Rust is engineered as a depressing tail with every character deeply flawed and a storyline in which no one is redeemed. The closing movie shot will be of a mountain field panning up into a sunny sky with a fade to white.

These are the reasons for the three stars, and I think that people are pumping this book beyond its core merits. I am glad I read it. I recommend it as a book club selection so please enjoy but know what you reading. The structure of book is so strong that I recommend the book to English teachers at the high school and college level who are looking for a new book to teach in modern literature.

While much will be made to compare the book to Steinbeck, Kennedy, Proulx and others it falls below that standard not by much, but I believe these comparisons go a little too far. Here are the other books I am comparing this with.

American Rust is in the grand tradition of rustbelt/upstate New York/Appalachian literature. Twenty-five years ago Kennedy's Ironweed was the `IT' novel of the year. Ten years latter it was Annie Proulx Shipping News.

Sorry to say that American Rust has this potential but it did not deliver to the degree of the Shipping News in quality of character development, storyline or writing. As a comparison, the density of the Shipping News that made you want to read more was not found in this book. That density did not make Shipping News a great movie but a great book. With its lack of density in American Rust is much more positioned for the screen. People who read the book and see the future movie will say that they are about equal.

The notes to the book mention that this is Phillip Meyer's first novel and that he was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writing. The book bears much of Michener's technical strength. Meyer has honed his craft telling a story based on writing technical excellence and structure. It is predictable in terms of the character relationships and the periodic insertion of `deep thoughts' when the characters look up from their miasma and stay something profound. I found that all of this predictable structure got in the way of telling a good story.

The story revolves around three triangles - the inner triangle is a version Grapes of Wrath except in reverse and twisted way. The supposed center of the story is Isaac who has the intelligence of George but the street smarts of Lenny. Isaac's friend, Poe has Lenny's physical strength and loyalty. Finally there is Lee, Isaac's sister who made it out of the despair of Western Pennsylvania to Yale, a rich husband and apparent success. I will not go into more detail, but these three form the core of the story and they have a set of predicable relationships and outcomes.

Grace - Poe's mother and a significantly underdeveloped character drives the middle triangle. Her lover is Harris the town sheriff who has been too lenient in this town (think the despair of Tommy Lee Jones character in No Country for Old Men). Finally there is Harry - Isaac and Lee's crippled father. Again imagine combinations that happen across this triangle and you would be largely right.

The outer triangle is really built of characters that drive separate parts of the plot with little else built around it. There is the mother of Isaac and Lee. There are three drifters who launch the plot. There are three skinheads at the end who bring it to a close.

This is a languid novel where individual characters lament about their inadequacies and constantly express how they feel trapped by their circumstances. The book ends with most, but not all of the major characters taking desperate action to force themselves out if their individual ruts.

Leave me a comment if you want my ideas on how to cast the movie.

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.

Pros: The author's got a penetrating stream of consciousness style with a Hemingway rhythm that for days after will have you thinking like this:
Have to write a review for American Rust, the mission, just say how the book made you feel. 26 letters to use, seems light, 26, but the combinations are endless. Not too much for the kid, though. The kid can do it. Just one letter in front of the other, starts with that and next thing you know it's a paragraph. But whom am I helping? Not myself. Review does nothing for the kid. Every positive book review is more money in Amazon's fat account, Jeff Bezos in his his Lear to Monaco while the kid digs in rusted PA dumpsters for scraps.
All right, I'll stop, but I give the author credit for nailing a flow that really does pull you along like a river. And, speaking of river, the setting of his fictional Pennsylvania riverside rust belt town is the other huge pro. I grew up in big cities, so the territory the author describes was new to me. All the details, the decomposing factories, the little things like the many classmates who'd died in the Desert wars, set against the beautiful natural scenery. It really painted a vivid picture of that fading town.
Cons: Man, I feel wrong saying anything bad about a really thoughtful book like this, but this is not a five-star book because it's not a knockout. It doesn't shake you or get you to call up your friends to tell them to read it. It's technically right on, and I don't think the author came up short in anything he was trying to do, but he just wasn't aiming to knock it out of the box. And the other thing that really gets me in all stories is when characters do stupid things you can't believe they would really do. I mean I hate in the movies where a person happens on a dead body in a pool of blood and then proceeds to walk through the blood slick, slip and fall down, and pick up the gun and put it back before running away - thereby becoming the prime suspect. It's a moodkiller. That's supposed to be the difference between fiction and truth - fiction has to make sense. Anyway, there's a critical juncture in this story where the main character lets someone rip him off and I just didn't buy how it went down. Frustrating - though the fact that it was so frustrating is evidence that the character had become real to me.
Overall solid book I'm very glad I read.

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?

I just finished this novel. Well done. Mr. Meyer provides great depth to his 5 main characters, alternating the focus chapter by chapter mostly amongst Isaac, Poe, Harris, Grace and Lee. Mr. Meyer pays special attention to local culture, history, and human nature of life in the steel mill towns of Pennsylvania and beyond. Loyalty is a strong theme, and perhaps what is really on Mr. Meyer's mind. This is not simply the obvious from Poe to Isaac, but also from Harris to Grace, Poe and Isaac; and from Lee to Poe, Isaac and her father. Each of them recognizes their choices, their failings, and their responsibilities. Harris as the Sheriff reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones, who surely would be the perfect fit. Isaac's strengths are his intellect and modesty, and he suffers the greatest unmet potential. Lee as his sister is a close match in intellect, a strong character with a recognition of the effect of her own choices and mistakes. Grace and Poe as mother and son are sad to the core but also drawn to life by Mr. Meyer.

This is rich, confident writing, and very well paced. Mr. Meyer lets the story unfold like a slow burn, weaving in a 7-10 day period in what seems like real time.

My favorite is Harris, who has to make the hardest choices, and who carries the greatest burden. It is Harris in the center, who has the pulse and we experience his inner struggle not merely with Grace, but with his own choices, his own demons, and his careful deliberations to make right what he knows is wrong.

This personal honesty is revealed by each of Mr. Meyer's character's thru their private thoughts. Quiet empathy and a deep care for what happens to each of them is the ultimate payoff here.

Good work Mr. Meyer.