Rust Belt Boy: Stories of an American Childhood

Paul Hertneky is one of millions of baby boomers who fled the industrial north upon fulfilling his parents’ dreams of a college education. He returns to his roots in Ambridge, Pennsylvania in this collection of stories specific to one legendary riverfront plateau and one boy’s journey, but emblematic of immigrant life and blue-collar aspirations during the heyday of American industry and its crash, foreshadowing one of the largest internal migrations in U.S. history. Table of Contents A Turning Tide Horns in the Hollow Rust and Restlessness Milk and Honey Where Stories Went to Die The Front Pew Sanctuary The Nation’s First Economy The Prurient Power of Pierogi Life as They Found It Rough and Ready, Tough and Tender Moms Who Put Out A Flame That Water Fed Popularity, Politics, and Patronage Humility and Its Opposite Sure But Not At All Certain Curiosity as Curse Light and Nature More Snoop Than Solicitor Of Heroes and Helpers Untethered Dodging a Bullet Itching All Over Like Ambridge with a C Rust: The Patina of Possibility Rescue Amid the Ruins Acknowledgments