Rust

One woman's story of finding hope across the divide

By: Eliese Colette Goldbach

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Hardcover | 3 March 2020 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
352 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
3.2 x 24.1 x 16.5

Hardcover

$54.75

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''[a] memoir of modern American industrial life, written by the insider who got away - or got away enough to reflect intelligently on where they came from. Think JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and even Tara Westover's Educated . . . We could all learn from her example.' New York Times Book Review

Eliese wasn't supposed to be a steelworker. Raised by staunchly Republican and Catholic parents, Eliese dreamed of escaping Cleveland and achieving greatness in the convent as a nun. Full of promise and burgeoning ideals, she leaves her hometown, but one night her life's course is violently altered. A night that sets her mind reeling and her dreams waning. A cycle of mania and depression sinks in where once there were miracles and prayers, and upon returning home she is diagnosed with mixed-state bipolar disorder.

Set on a path she doesn't recognize as her own, Eliese finds herself under the orange flame of Cleveland's notorious steel mill, applying for a job that could be her ticket to regaining stability and salvation. In Rust, Eliese invites the reader inside the belly of the mill. Steel is the only thing that shines amid the molten iron, towering cranes, and churning mills. Dust settles on everything - on forklifts and hard hats, on men with forgotten hopes and lives cut short by harsh working conditions, on a dismissed blue-collar living and on what's left of the American dream.

But Eliese discovers solace in the tumultuous world of steel, unearthing a love and a need for her hometown she didn't know existed. This is the story of the humanity Eliese finds in the most unlikely of places and the wisdom that comes from the very things we try to run away from most. A reclamation of roots, Rust is a shining debut memoir of grit and tenacity and the hope that therefore begins to grow.

Industry Reviews

Movingly and candidly told . . . At this most divisive moment in American politics, we could all learn from her example - Financial Times Weekend

Eliese Colette Goldbach uses formal experiment, broken narrative, and a voice that admits doubt and questions the terms of its telling to fight silencing. Masterful form is often a question of well-managed ruptur - Leslie Jamison

"A female steelworker's soulful portrait of industrial life. Goldbach's evocative prose paints a Dantean vision of the mill...but she discovers in the plant's quirky, querulous employees an ethic of empathy and solidarity that bridges ideological divides. The result is an insightful and ultimately reassuring take on America's working class - Publisher's Weekly

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

Beautiful - Charlie LeDuff

There have been a lot of books written about life in industrial cities in the Midwest, but relatively few written by people who actually live in them, and few so heartfelt and unsparing. Rust is at once a unique memoir and a broad indictment of America's broken promise that anyone who came of age in the 21st century will find painfully familiar - Sarah Kendzior

Rust is a soulful telling of America's stubborn and forgotten core. Deeply honest and defying easy sentimentality, this book heralds the arrival of a true talent - Adam Chandler

Goldbach turns in a gritty memoir of working in a steel mill while wrestling with the world beyond.... An affecting, unblinking portrait of working-class life - Kirkus Reviews

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