Philipp Meyer is a talented writer. “American Rust” is his
first book. Allegedly. Because a ‘first book’ doesn’t include all
those thousands of words lying in a half-finished manuscript in the
drawer.
I mention this because the writing style is evolved, not in
its formulative stages. The prose
(should be another word for it) is intuitive, and reflective of mixed
Pennsylvania Dutch sentence structure coupled with a Joycean stream of
consciousness model that gets into the reader’s head.
The novel is well-grounded and generally well researched. Characters are real, not the idealized social types popular with people thinking
literature and writing should remain within the aegis of academic preferences,
aspirations, and fantasies.
Politics don’t figure much in this novel in any except in
incidental ways. Meyer’s story captures
the feelings and sensations of a time not entirely passed. The destruction of the post WWII industrial
base. Same things happening in fictional Buell are still happening or have
happened in so many small and even large towns of America. Heavy and light industry shipped to Asia.
At the center of “American Rust” are two long-time high school friends, Isaac,
an undeveloped would be something tethered to his crippled father in a small dead town with
no future prospects. Then there’s his bosom
buddy Billie Poe, former star athlete, volatile, also talented but fated to
fail. Like with everyone else, he has ideas but fails to act on them.
The two young men share a special and unique bond. Billy, or
“Poe” as he’s characterized in the text, pulled Isaac out of the icy cold
waters of a river. Apparently, Isaac inherited the suicide gene.
His mother filled her pockets with rocks and drowned herself in the river
Their families are
part of it too.
Grace is Billie Poe’s mother who missed her chance of an
upgrade by sacrificing her life to raising Billie, even if her feet are stuck
in the physical and emotional mire of Buell.
There’s a background focus on the decline of American manufacturing. This is about people in a small town in western
Pennsylvania (referred to as ‘Pennsyltucky’ be people trying to denigrate the
place) who are struggling to get by as the times they are a changing.’ Think of
Billy Joel’s anthemic song “Allentown:”
‘Well, we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem, they're killing time
Filling out forms, standing in line
That’s the tapestry upon which the plot is built. This speaks of the decline of the American steel
industry and old-school manufacturing in
general. Bethlehem Steel was a giant economic force in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh
Valley. About 300 miles west, near
Pittsburgh, is fictional Buell Pa where things seem even worse.
The Lehigh Valley has
survived, been rejuvenated to some extent. The giant rusted hulk of the
legendary Pennsylvania steel mill has been turned into a museum. Across the
road from it is a shiny new gambling casino which employs a large number of
people though not nearly as many as the steel industry supported.
Buell has not survived.
Or it’s on life support, and so are the people who live there, it seems. Buell is a monument to abandoned factories, rusting machinery and double-wide trailers where Isaac’s best
friend lives with his arthritic mother.
This books does a lot of things well. I particularly liked the way the writer created the tense, interlocking reationships between the four principal characters. That much is tight.
What’s not tight about the novel is that the
Isaac character spends too much time engaging in masturbatory philosophical
meanderings which do little for the plot.
Some of it does help to define the character; too much of it gives you heartburn. Granted, this was not a large impediment to
me enjoying the book.
My hit on the end of the book is ambiguous just as the
writer probably intended. The characters
came out bruised, dented, and changed forever but they’re still breathing and
marching forward. I like that — the
scrappy determination of small town America.
Maybe ‘cause that’s where I was at during a particular period of my
life.
I’d be looking at reading this writer again perhaps. So. . .
B-plus or A-minus. C’est la meme chose.
