THE PARABLE OF RUST

A novella focuses on the vacillating fortunes of an industrial town in America and the families that run it.

On the surface, Rust appears to be a normal Midwestern town, situated in the Great Lakes region, its economy dominated by the manufacturing of widgets. But the town is actually atypical. As a quirky consequence of the divisive politics of the mid-19th century, Rust becomes a kind of autonomous city-state, one permitted to exist as part of a “harmonization treaty” with the United States. Norman Selbsteiger launches his own shipping company in the 1920s, the entrepreneurial commencement of a family dynasty whose commercial interests will eventually revolve around the production of widgets in Rust (“A town of respectable size due to its Great Lakes access, Rust hit its prime when the interstate highway system placed it at the nexus of road, rail, and lake transportation networks,” which ideally suited the town “for widget manufacturing”). Williamson sketches out a short, thought-provoking tale that spans successive generations of Rust and its principal family, a story that includes the rise, decline, and recovery of both. The most captivating aspect of the book is the uncommon political status of Rust, a state within a state, and the advantages and complications such a classification poses. But the account of the family remains largely remote and impersonal—no fully fleshed out character emerges, and readers are rarely treated to any dialogue. The author seems much more interested in providing a granular account of the family’s shifting financial strategies. For example, at one point, Anne Altmire—she married a “roguish” member of the family, Trey, who was finally expelled—ingeniously devises a new financial product: “Barrier options are derivative financial products in this Level 2 classification. At their simplest, barrier options have the form ‘If security X ever reaches price Y within time-window T, then $Z is paid, all-or-nothing.” The work is mostly written in this dry, exacting style that seems more suitable for a corporate prospectus than dramatic literature.

An intriguing but uneven tale of a Midwestern town.