Perspectives
Literary perspective
The extract “Grace” from the novel American Rust by Philipp Meyer is a modernist work of fiction.
A modernist feature used in the extract is the stream-of-consciousness technique, which gives readers access to Grace’…
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Historical perspective
The extract “Grace” from the novel American Rust by Philipp Meyer focuses on the fictional town of Buell, set in the Rust Belt region of the US.
The Rust Belt was a region of the US that experienced an industrial decline in the 1950s, which mostly affected cities in the Northeast and the Midwest US. The main causes of deindustrialization were the Great Depression, w…
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Television adaptation
Philipp Meyer’s novel American Rust was adapted into a television series that premiered in 2021. The show currently has two seasons and features actor Jeff Daniels as Chief Del Harris and Maura Tierney as Grace Poe. Just like the novel, the action is set in a small town in Pennsylvania, where the chief of police Del Harris investigates a murder, with the main suspect being Grace’s son Billy. The series deviates a little from the plot of the original novel, sometimes giving it a different feel. The first season received mixed reviews from viewers and critics alike…
