American Rust

Philipp Meyer grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of high school and attended Cornell, where he studied English. Since graduating, Meyer has worked as a derivatives trader and a construction worker. His writing has been published in McSweeney's, The Iowa Review, Salon, and New Stories from the South. From 2005-2008 Meyer was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. He lives near Ithaca in New York State.

'The American dream dies and is reborn yet again. Set in a beautiful but bleak post-industrial landscape with characters who are compellingly engaging, AMERICAN RUST is a startlingly mature and impressive debut.' Kate Atkinson 'A novel as splendidly crafted and original as any written in recent decades, AMERICAN RUST is both darkly disturbing and richly compelling. Philipp Meyer's first novel signals the arrival of a new voice in American letters.' Patricia Cornwell 'This is strong, clean stuff. Philipp Meyer deserves to be taken seriously.' Pete Dexter 'Meyer has a thrilling eye for failed dreams and writes uncommonly tense scenes of violence. Fans of Cormac McCarthy or Dennis Lehane will find in Meyer an author worth watching.' Publishers Weekly "With its strong narrative engine and understated social insight, American Rust is reminiscent of the best of Robert Stone and Russell Banks. Author Phillip Meyer locates the heart of his working class characters without false sentiment or condescension, and their world is artfully described. An extraordinary, compelling novel from a major talent." George Pelecanos 'Philipp Meyer's American Rust is written with considerable dramatic intensity and pace. It manages an emotional accuracy, a deep and detailed conviction, in its depiction of character. It also captures a sense of a menacing society, a wider world in the throes of decay and self-destruction' Colm Toibin 'Some of North America's greatest novels have been responses to or evocations of The Great Depression. There's Steinbeck, of course, Harper Lee, even Margaret Atwood -- and it's the first of these authors this exceptional debut novel most clearly updates to our present travails... [Meyer] has a documentarist's eye for an uncertain, self-destructing world, the lyrical style to nail a friendship in a sentence and an almost effortless devotion to a page-turning story. Debut novelists are often adept at one or two of those ingredients but Meyer's triumph with American Rust is to excel in all three' Book of the Week, 5 stars, Metro 22/4 'Meyer has fused a molten story set among the defunct steel mills and deer-filled woods of a small Pennsylvania town... The entropic nature of a society in paralysis is stunningly portrayed in a novel rich in scope and ambition' Guardian 25/4 'When Franklin Roosevelt put his new deal into action in 1933, the dustbowl of the Midwest was the symbol of the collapse of the American dream. Today there's a rust belt that stretches across the North-eastern States -- a region of America where heavy industry has withered and died, mills and factories have turned to rust. It's this landscape that forms the backdrop for a powerful new novel; a debut from 34 year old Philipp Meyer. American Rust has won acclaim from literary critics and rights have been sold across the world' John Wilson, Front Row 16/4 'American Rust is so timely that it makes painful as well as enjoyable reading. The novel is a paean to the end of empire...Mr Meyer's voice is assured, and the story crackles with narrative tension. He develops his characters with impressive psychological and sociological insight, observing astutely that "there was something particularly American" about "blaming yourself for bad luck - that resistance to seeing your life as affected by social forces, a tendency to attribute larger problems to individual behaviour." Meyer himself sees these larger forces all too clearly, and it is his portrayal of America's devastated industrial base that is likely to get this novel much attention: "You could not have a country, not this big, that didn't make things for itself. There would be ramifications eventually." The author delineates the inexorable welfare dependency, petty crime and drug and alcohol abuse that follow when the infrastructure of steady employment implodes. The picture is firm, but masterfully painted' The Economist 25/4 'An elegiac portrait of a disintegrating society' FT, 25/4 'Meyer has created a desperate, tragic narrative, depicting with poetic economy the beauty of hills and rivers; a lush landscape underwritten by desolation. His writing glints with sharp dialogue, and he displays an almost virtuosic ability to change mode, from thought to voice, from colloquialism to lyrical description. But Meyer's triumph isn't simply that of a story-teller-although he is masterful, driving through the narrative at an addictive pace. It is primarily the ability to occupy minds, twisting from character to character, allowing their thoughts to animate action and bring it dazzlingly to life' New Statesman 18/5 'Meyer creates a jigsaw of characters that click together into a vivid portrait that expertly shakes the blue collar of small-town America in an assured debut' 5 stars, RTE Guide 9/5 'Do people still think in terms of the Great American Novel - a work of fiction that exactly captures the contemporary spirit of the union? If so, American Rust has GAN stamped all over it. In racing terms it's by Of Mice and Men, out of Huckleberry Finn, ridden by Cormac McCarthy, and trained by Salinger and Kerouac' Sunday Telegraph 24/5 'Meyer wryly acknowledges the literary tradition in which tales like this are often told... and in doing so, avoids its pitfalls. Instead, he gives us a powerful insight in to the lives of America's dispossessed, without patronising the people he writes about: they are victims of their circumstances, but not blameless caricatures. He has fine-tuned the nuances of their voices, from the intensity of Isaac's rapid-fire thoughts, to the circular, defeated thought pattern of Poe's mother, Grace, and the plot is captivating without ever straying into the realm of folksy page-turner. The political message may be obvious - "We're treading backwards as a nation, probably for the first time in history," Bud's boss tells him - but it's a compelling one none the less' Observer 24/5 'A fine achievement... moving between the panoramic and the personal with engaging confidence' Sunday Times 24/5 'Terrific... Meyer's largely faultless prose' Uncut magazine July issue 'Meyer creates a jigsaw of characters that click together into a vivid portrait that expertly shakes the blue collar of small-town America in an assured debut' 5 stars, RTE Guide 9/5 'Do people still think in terms of the Great American Novel - a work of fiction that exactly captures the contemporary spirit of the union? If so, American Rust has GAN stamped all over it. In racing terms it's by Of Mice and Men, out of Huckleberry Finn, ridden by Cormac McCarthy, and trained by Salinger and Kerouac' Sunday Telegraph 24/5 'Meyer wryly acknowledges the literary tradition in which tales like this are often told... and in doing so, avoids its pitfalls. Instead, he gives us a powerful insight in to the lives of America's dispossessed, without patronising the people he writes about: they are victims of their circumstances, but not blameless caricatures. He has fine-tuned the nuances of their voices, from the intensity of Isaac's rapid-fire thoughts, to the circular, defeated thought pattern of Poe's mother, Grace, and the plot is captivating without ever straying into the realm of folksy page-turner. The political message may be obvious - "We're treading backwards as a nation, probably for the first time in history," Bud's boss tells him - but it's a compelling one none the less' Observer 24/5 'A fine achievement... moving between the panoramic and the personal with engaging confidence' Sunday Times 24/5 'Terrific... Meyer's largely faultless prose' Uncut magazine July issue 'With its lush, rustic hinterland populated, "like Indian times", by bears, coyotes, and deer, which surrounds a decaying industrial base, where all the town's steel mills have shut down, it is hugely evocative of Michael Cimino's movie, The Deer Hunter' Interview, Irish Examiner 23/5 'Meyer's gritty evocation of life in a depressed Pennsylvania steel town focuses on two young men who are offered escape routes out of their directionless small-town lives, but whose plans are changed by one terrible mistake. Honour, loyalty, love and belonging are the grand themes of this powerful American novel, which owes as much to Steinbeck as Kerouac' Summer Reads, Sunday Telegraph 14/6 'Having been force-fed John Steinbeck... I'm always just a little wary of any novel that features a double-wide trailer and is set in the industrial wastelands of the country... This first novel surprises you with its sureness of tone, its narrative propulsion and the singular and perceptive way in which it steers clear of all the usual redneck cliches... More than anything, American Rust impresses because it reminds us that even the most archetypal of situations can be given an intriguing remake in the right hands. Meyer never wears his social conscience on his sleeve and he never tries to pander to the reader's metropolitan guilt. And, simultaneously, he does make you want to turn the page. This is a new writer who clearly knows what he is doing' Douglas Kennedy, The Times 11/4 'Set in a bereft Pennsylvanian steel town. Meyer's gripping debut follows the disturbing story of two young men who, due to one violent incident, see their lives --and those of their family and friends- changed forever. Meyer is already being compared to John Steinbeck, with very good reason' Esquire August issue 'Set in America's crumbling industrial heartland. Mr Meyer's first novel is a pean to the end of empire -- a book that is as painful as it is enjoyable' 'Books of the Year', Economist 5/12 'Moving and compelling, it stands up as one as those great novels about disillusioned America' Sunday Telegraph 28/1 'A tale of loyalty, friendship and pride that takes a huge effort to put down' The Herald 20/2 'This is a fine achievement, moving between the panoramic and the personal with engaging confidence' The Sunday Times 14/3 'Even before it was published, Philipp Meyer's excellent debut novel was paid the unusual homage of featuring as a police officer's reading material in Patricia Co