American Rust is American writer Philipp Meyer's debut novel published in 2009. Set in the present-day 2000s (decade), American Rust takes place in the fictional town of Buell in Fayette County, Pennsylvania which is in a rural region referred to as "the Valley" of dilapidated steel towns. American Rust focuses on the decline of the American middle class, good-paying manufacturing jobs, and the general sense of economic and social malaise of what has become known as the New Gilded Age.