A society in decline

I have to admit American Rust is one of the books I came across in Amazon's recommendation and customer review system. Add to it the newspaper praise, where it was compared to Cormac McCarthy's unputdownable Road, and it was more than enough to have my hands itching to buy it. What also got me attracted was the ambience of American decline that is strikingly clear as soon as you read the title and see the front cover. In a period of economic doom, when we keep picking up messages of social disintegration on a daily basis, I kind of wanted to explore this mood even more.

American Rust tells a crime story set in Buell, a small town in the Mon Valley, a depressed area hit especially hard by the offshoring of heavy industry jobs to cheaper destinations. It's not about who'd done it. We know nearly from page one that it's two local high school graduates who found themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time. In a tussle in an abandoned machine shop, Isaac blasts a bearing against a bum's forehead and kills him. Normally a quiet and extremely clever boy, he does that to rescue Poe, a friend. The story shuttles between several characters whose lives are affected by these unfortunate events in the following weeks.

Narrating events through multiple eyes is an interesting technique. It makes it possible to keep the pace of the story quite high, as we learn about new developments from different characters. But it also allows to paint a broader social and emotional background as so many distinct voices get a chance to speak out. I felt engrossed by this style in the opening chapters, even if my enthusiasm began to taper off somewhat deeper into the book.

American Rust is a poignant portrayal of a society in decline. With a disappearing manufacturing base and a dearth of meaningful jobs to go around, the dream of a decent life for decent work is slowly but inevitably turning into a nightmare. Average Joes and Janes struggle to make ends meet, they lose confidence, optimism and a sense of direction. They have little to inspire a generation of their children to do any better. Relationships are strained and broken. Crime creeps in as a natural side effect.

The book is full of uncompromising descriptions of houses falling apart, steelyards being taken to pieces and the society getting older, rusty, beyond repair. It's often pitted against nature that, incidentally, seems to be staging a comeback. Deer wander in the streets and around houses, the valley's lush scenery offers the only real respite from all-embracing decay.

Every character in the story is somehow tragically affected by the decline. Most live on (or not high above) the breadline, doing poorly paid jobs or trying as hard as they can to qualify for government benefits. A disability pension means a life of stability and luxury. Good jobs are impossible to find. Quite tellingly, home care for the elderly might be the only growth area. Another sector that is still standing is bar nightlife. Poe and Isaac, two stray teenagers who kill the Swede in the machine shop, are incapable of leaving the place behind. They are both exceptionally talented but lack social and life skills needed to move on in life. Getting in trouble instead is a natural consequence. Isaac's smart-ass sister Lee manages to move up the social ladder by marrying rich in Boston, but remains unhappy, lonely and lost in her life. A good-natured cop Harris, who is in love with Poe's mother Grace, resorts to authority abuse to save her son from lockup. He murders two tramp witnesses.

The book's grim but enjoyable as an unsweetened look into America's underbelly.

Some quotes and vocab:

"We're trending backwards as a nation, probably for the first time in history (...). The real problem is the average citizen doesn't have a job he can be good at"

"There was something particularly American about it - blaming yourself for your bad luck" (229)

"This is what it means to get old, you don't forward to pleasure so much as easing pain"

"By a certain age, people have their own trajectory"

"painful to see the world changing without you"

to sink money into sth
send sth into a tailspin / go into a tailspin
get a free ride for sth
change the bedpan
fall behind on bills
a horror show
It's not going anywhere
be on child support (= alimenty)
probably holding the books upside down
a minimum-wage job
to take a pull from a bottle
watch a sun go dwon from a back deck
get one free pass (raz się upiec)
a licence plate
look through binoculars
bend over backwards
I think a drink wouldn't kill us.
come round for a piece of pussy
Alrighty, then.
go back on your word
call in sick
wolf or sheep / predator or prey / hunter or hunted
get arrested for public consumption
DUI = driving under influence
take an immediate dislike to
dead in the water (= not going anywhere, not making any progress)
to frisk = to search esp for a hidden gun
a shot caller = a high status gang member
That's pretty much the least of your worries
within the margin of error
a National Merit scholar
trailer trash
put a warrant out for sb
to grab sb in a haedlock