Philipp Meyer. American Rust. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2009. 343.
This powerful novel is a case study in character development. Each chapter focuses on a single character. While the narrative remains in the 3rd person, the reader primarily sees the world through that character’s eyes for a few pages. This is an effective technique in building up empathy with characters who otherwise might seem opqaue or even unlikeably. Meyer does more than put the reader in his characters’ shoes: he puts them in their heads.
The story is a deceptively simple one. Two young men are drawn into committing a crime, and each faces the consequences in his own way. Along the way, the reader meets the mothers, fathers, siblings, and others who are likewise pulled under.
American Rust is set in Buell, Pennsylvania, a decaying steel town whose plants have mostly closed. Meyer frequently contrasts the post-industrial decay of the area with its natural beauty, which is quite effective. I’m reminded of a passage from Stillgoe’s Metropolitan Corridor in which he discusses New England farmland that, made unprofitable by the cheaper products brought by railroad, gradually returned to wilderness. It’s a phenomenon that Meyer captures before the readers’ eyes: reports of deer, bear, and coyotes growing bolder and nature encroaching on what were once steel mills underline the sense of decay and declension that pervades the book.
The book is more than sociology, though. It’s a solid novel with brilliant description and carefully-built characters that the reader won’t mind getting invested in. Initially, the reader’s sympathies may be with Issac, an under-sized, bookish young man who’s stayed n Buell to care for his father, but by the end of the novel no one seems to be a stranger.
That’s the key to what makes this a great novel: there’s not much action and only the slightest bit of suspense, but Meyer’s produced such complete, nuanced, and distinctive characters that American Rust is nonetheless a book that is put down only with difficulty.