You’ve already heard us mention Philipp Meyer’s new novel American Rust when he was coming to the store last month, but we liked the book so much we made it our Top Shelf pick for April. Kester Smith, our New & Noteworthy Book Club leader, had this to say about American Rust.
I have been waiting for almost 15 years for someone to write American Rust. Philipp Meyer finally did it.
This might take a paragraph or two to explain.
I am a rabid Bruce Springsteen fan. And, in the fall of 1995, Springsteen released an album titled The Ghost of Tom Joad. The title was clearly inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but the songs were as much about the Texas/Mexico border or Pennsylvania steel towns as they were about the classic trek to California. They were songs about real people, and acted as a compliment to Springsteen’s earlier (and best) work, Nebraska.
I spent the last two months of 1995 listening to these two albums on repeat and wishing I had the time or the skill to write a film or a book that was populated by characters like these. Given that I lacked the time (or, quite possibly, the skill), I wished that someone, somewhere, sometime might take the task upon himself.
And, almost 15 years later, Philipp Meyer completed this task, and beautifully.
Some authors create characters that do what you think they’ll do. Some authors create characters that do what you hope they’ll do. Others create characters that do what they “ought” to do.
But a certain type of author, a particularly gifted sort, allows his characters to do what they would actually do; allows them to live and breathe as if they were real.
Philipp Meyer is that kind of author.
American Rust is set in a Pennsylvania steel town and is centered around the friendship of Isaac English and Billy Poe, two recent high school graduates bound by a desire to escape the fate of their families and friends, stuck in a town that is slowly dying. On the day they manage to finally make good their escape, Isaac and Billy find themselves caught up in an act of violence that threatens to trap them forever.
American Rust is already being compared to the works of Cormac McCarthy and John Steinbeck, and with good reason, but as I read Meyer’s book, I was most reminded of the soul and sadness of a Springsteen song. American Rust is a powerful debut about life and death and loyalty and love. Meyer captures the danger and darkness that run through the heart of our American landscape and the rust and decay of our American dream.
We currently have signed copies available, and BookPeople highly recommends this great local author!
Also, check out his appearance on NPR’s All Things Considered.
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