American Rust

NOW A HIT STREAMING SERIES • A “bold, absorbing novel” (The New York Times Book Review) of the lost American dream, the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love that arise from its loss, and two young men, bound to their hometown, who crave an escape. “Powerful . . . gripping . . . in the tradition that stretches from Ernest Hemingway to Cormac McCarthy.”—The Washington Post A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Economist, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Newsweek, Kansas City Star, Idaho Statesman Left alone to care for his aging father after his mother dies by suicide and his sister escapes to Yale, Isaac English longs for a life beyond his hometown, a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town. But when he finally sets out to leave for good, accompanied by his temperamental best friend, former high school football star Billy Poe, they are caught up in a terrible act of violence that changes their lives forever. Evoking John Steinbeck’s novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust takes us into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It is a dark but lucid vision, a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.

Originally publlished in hardcover in 2015 by Simon & Schuster.

“Timely . . . [the collection] paints intimate portraits of neglected places that are often used as political talking points. A good companion piece to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.”—Booklist The essays in Voices from the Rust Belt "address segregated schools, rural childhoods, suburban ennui, lead poisoning, opiate addiction, and job loss. They reflect upon happy childhoods, successful community ventures, warm refuges for outsiders, and hidden oases of natural beauty. But mainly they are stories drawn from uniquely personal experiences: A girl has her bike stolen. A social worker in Pittsburgh makes calls on clients. A journalist from Buffalo moves away, and misses home.... A father gives his daughter a bath in the lead-contaminated water of Flint, Michigan" (from the introduction). Where is America's Rust Belt? It's not quite a geographic region but a linguistic one, first introduced as a concept in 1984 by Walter Mondale. In the modern vernacular, it's closely associated with the "Post-Industrial Midwest," and includes Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York. The region reflects the country's manufacturing center, which, over the past forty years, has been in decline. In the 2016 election, the Rust Belt's economic woes became a political talking point, and helped pave the way for a Donald Trump victory. But the region is neither monolithic nor easily understood. The truth is much more nuanced. Voices from the Rust Belt pulls together a distinct variety of voices from people who call the region home. Voices that emerge from familiar Rust Belt cities—Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, and Buffalo, among other places—and observe, with grace and sensitivity, the changing economic and cultural realities for generations of Americans.

Why do people stay in a struggling city? City on the Edge explores this question through the lives of five people in Syracuse, New York, a quintessential rust-belt metropolis. Once a booming industrial center with a dynamic civic life and prominence on the world stage, Syracuse has endured decades of crime, drugs, economic depression, absent-minded political leadership, and population decline. Michael Streissguth spent more than three years interviewing a young survivor of the streets, a refugee from Cuba, an urban farmer, a community activist, and a city elder, who shared their stories as they found ways to make life work against sometimes formidable odds. He also contextualizes their extended commentary and storytelling with secondary characters and various episodes, such as a tragic Father's Day riot and the trial that followed. The result is an eye-opening look at life in America in the twenty-first century, where people strive to turn their ideas, frustrations, and disadvantages into new hope for themselves and the city where they live.

Manufacturing Decline argues that antigovernment conservatives capitalized on--and perpetuated--Rust Belt cities' misfortunes by stoking racial resentment. Jason Hackworth traces how the conservative movement has used the imagery and ideas of urban decline since the 1970s to advance their cause.

"Elements of Tara Westover’s Educated... The mill comes to represent something holy to [Eliese] because it is made not of steel but of people." —New York Times Book Review One woman's story of working in the backbreaking steel industry to rebuild her life—but what she uncovers in the mill is much more than molten metal and grueling working conditions. Under the mill's orange flame she finds hope for the unity of America. Steel is the only thing that shines in the belly of the mill... To ArcelorMittal Steel Eliese is known as #6691: Utility Worker, but this was never her dream. Fresh out of college, eager to leave behind her conservative hometown and come to terms with her Christian roots, Eliese found herself applying for a job at the local steel mill. The mill is everything she was trying to escape, but it's also her only shot at financial security in an economically devastated and forgotten part of America. In Rust, Eliese brings the reader inside the belly of the mill and the middle American upbringing that brought her there in the first place. She takes a long and intimate look at her Rust Belt childhood and struggles to reconcile her desire to leave without turning her back on the people she's come to love. The people she sees as the unsung backbone of our nation. Faced with the financial promise of a steelworker’s paycheck, and the very real danger of working in an environment where a steel coil could crush you at any moment or a vat of molten iron could explode because of a single drop of water, Eliese finds unexpected warmth and camaraderie among the gruff men she labors beside each day. Appealing to readers of Hillbilly Elegy and Educated, Rust is a story of the humanity Eliese discovers in the most unlikely and hellish of places, and the hope that therefore begins to grow.

All 44 episodes from the first two series of comedian David Mitchell's online video show. Consisting of a series of short monologues to camera, Mitchell lets fly at whatever random topic has caught his ire. Series 1 episodes comprise: 'Mouse', 'Flowers', 'The Welsh', 'The Elderly', 'Beer', 'Unusually Smart', 'TV Rudeness', 'Spelling', 'Consensus', 'Rape and Pillage', 'Inappropriate', 'Questions', 'Passionate', 'Male Grooming', 'Compliments', 'Man Flu', 'Going To The Doctor', 'Necrophilia', 'Hauliers', 'Gaelic', 'Special Quiz', 'Quiz Winner', 'Birthday Cards', 'Food' and 'Waste in Politics'. Series 2 episodes are: 'King Cnut', 'Dear America', 'Haircuts', 'Personal Debts', 'Authenticity', 'References', 'Lying Liars', 'Camelopard', 'Climate Change', 'Pub Queues', 'Innuendo', 'Trains, Part 1', 'Trains, Part 2', 'Signing Boobs', '3D', 'Communal Eating', 'Signs', 'Kid's Stuff', 'Red Shirt' and 'In Summary'.