American Rust by Philipp Meyer

Paperback:  "...what we learn in time of pestilence:  that there are more things to admire in men than to despise." - Albert Camus

Set in a beautiful but dying Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust (2009) is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation that arises from its loss.  It is the story of two young men bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories, abandoned homes, and the polluted river.

Isaac is the smartest kid in town, left behind to care for his sick father after his mother commits suicide and his sister Lee moves away.  Now Isaac wants out too.  Not even his best friend, Billy Poe, can stand in his way:  broad-shouldered Billy, always ready for a fight, still living in his mother's trailer.

Then, on the very day of Isaac's leaving, something happens that changes the friends' fates and tests the loyalties of their friendship and those of their lovers, families, and the town itself.

Evoking John Steinbeck's novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust is an extraordinarily moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence, and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.

American Rust is Meyer's first novel and won the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an Economist Book of the Year, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a New York Times Notable Book.

About the author:  Philipp Meyer grew up in a working class neighbourhood in Baltimore.  His mother is an artist;  his father taught college science for twenty years after working variously as a cabinet maker, electrician, and art installer.  The neighbourhood, Hampden, had been hit hard by the collapse of various heavy industries, and crime and unemployment were high.  Meyer attended city public schools until dropping out at age 16 and getting a GED.  He spent the next five years working as a bicycle mechanic and occasionally volunteering at Baltimore's Shock Trauma Centre.

At age 20, he began taking classes at a variety of colleges in Baltimore and decided to become a writer.  He also decided to leave his hometown, and at 22, on his third attempt at applying to various Ivy League colleges, he was admitted to Cornell University.  He graduated with a degree in English and a mountain of debt and headed for Wall Street to pay off his student loans.

After getting a job with the Swiss investment bank UBS, Meyer did training in London and Zurich and was assigned to a derivatives trading desk.  After several years at UBS, he had paid off most of his student loans and decided to pursue his dream of becoming a writer.  When his savings ran out, he took jobs as an emergency medical technician and construction worker.  He was preparing for a second career as a paramedic when he was admitted to the MFA program at the Michener Centre for Writers in Austin, Texas, where he was a James Michener Fellow.  While attending grad school he continued to do emergency medical work, driving to New Orleans just as Hurricane Katrina hit and working as an EMT during that storm.

Meyer's second novel, The Son (2013), was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.  So far, The Son has been on the bestseller list in six countries;  Meyer and the production company El Jefe are currently adapting it for AMC as a television show.

Meyer lives in Austin, Texas.

Rating:  5/5