Bibliofreakblog

American Rust by Philipp Meyer

This is one of those novels that comes along in life and just makes you gush.  I told my boss about it.  I told my mom about it.  I finished the book and turned to my husband and said, you need to read this.

What’s it about? I keep being asked.  That’s a trickier question.  It’s about a couple of guys, about 19 or 20, living in what used to be big steel country in Pennsylvania.  For one reason or another they haven’t left yet, though there’s nothing there for them.

And then a not-totally-freak accident happens, which prevents one from leaving and forces the other to try to get out.  It sort of takes a little bit of an Outsiders turn then.

Meyer has a real ability for characterization, and the slow build.  His tragedy takes on almost a Greek or Shakespearian quality in its irony, and the events that his characters take upon themselves.

But it’s the writing.  The writing that makes it unputdownable.  Written the whole way through in a limited 3rd person, each character is written in a similar way, with poignant differences.  It’s a prose that is both lush and lurid, equally captivating in each character.  Isaac, arguably a bona fide genius with a sort of poetic side, is written in more of a stream-of-consciousness way, referring to himself in his thoughts as “the kid.”  This sort of distancing himself from himself, this split in his way of thinking, emulates his burden of never having fulfilled his potential.

It’s a gem of a novel.  A novel of our times, of our generation and economy.  I think it’s one that will endure, too.

Yo FTC!  I received a copy of this book as part of a TLC Blog Tour.  For more information, see TLC’s American Rust page.

Buy American Rust on Amazon 

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Dakota by Kathleen Norris
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell 
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower 

Other works by Philipp Meyer:

none.