Understanding The Story Behind Philipp Meyer's "American Rust"

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When you are thumbing through potential books to read, you will often see books that are selling well and are collecting all sorts of accolades, and while it is perfectly possible to enjoy these books without having any clue how the books arrived at the point they did, it can also be a lot more enjoyable to read a book when you know the story behind it.

Last year, The New Yorker released their list of the 20 best writers under the age of 40, and on the list was Phillipp Meyer, whose 2009 novel American Rust won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was listed as a New York Times Notable Book - but the journey Meyer took to reach this point was something else altogether!

When he was only sixteen years old, Philipp Meyer dropped out of high school and got his GED before spending several years working odd jobs, but by the time Meyer reached the age of 20, he decided he wanted to be a writer. Meyer wanted to study writing at a top school, but because of his educational track record, it took him two years to finally land in a school he wanted - and at the age of 22, he went to Cornell to study writing.

Meyer excelled at Cornell, but after school he got a job as a derivatives trader on Wall Street to pay off his student loans while he continued to write - but after finishing his second manuscript, Meyer quit his lucrative job in order to continue writing and land a publishing deal for one of his manuscripts.

There was one problem, however: No agents or editors seemed to want to sign on with Meyer's two manuscripts, so he continued writing (now working on a third novel, which he was calling American Rust), continued to get rejected by MFA programs and by agents and editors, moved back in with his parents and continued working odd jobs, and then, finally, Meyer completed American Rust; the book quickly landed a publishing deal, and upon its publication, the book gathered piles of accolades - and the rest, as they say, is history!