Author Guide · Literary Fiction
Books Written by
Philipp Meyer left high school in Baltimore at 16, fixed bicycles for about five years, and after a degree in English at Cornell traded derivatives for the Swiss bank UBS, a job he called “soul-crushing”. He quit to write, driving an ambulance and working construction while he lived in his parents’ house. His first novel, American Rust (2009), is set in a dying steel town in Pennsylvania; his second, The Son (2013), follows one Texas family from the Comanche frontier to the oil age and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Both became television series. This guide covers his two key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 2 key books · 2009–2013 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Philipp Meyer has published two novels: American Rust (2009) and The Son (2013), a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2014. Start with The Son. Two more novels are announced, The City and a novel about Marcus Aurelius; read on for what each book covers and how the TV adaptations differ.
Where to Start with Philipp Meyer
If you want his defining book
→ The Son (2013) — the Texas family saga that was a Pulitzer finalist.
If you want a shorter, contemporary novel
→ American Rust (2009) — two young men in a Pennsylvania steel town.
If you watched the AMC series with Pierce Brosnan
→ The Son (2013).
If you watched the Jeff Daniels series
→ American Rust (2009).
2 Philipp Meyer Books, in Order
American Rust
Buell, a fictional steel town in western Pennsylvania modelled on the Monongahela Valley, after the mills have closed. Isaac English, a gifted young man looking after his father, and his friend Billy Poe, a former high-school football star, set out to leave town and become caught up in a killing that changes both their lives. The story is told from the points of view of six characters, partly in stream of consciousness. It won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
The Son
The McCullough family across more than a century of Texas history, told in three voices. Eli is 13 when Comanches raid his family’s homestead and take him captive; he later becomes a cattle baron and oilman. His son Peter lives through the border violence against Mexican Texans in the 1910s, and Eli’s great-granddaughter Jeanne Anne runs the family’s oil business in the 20th century. It was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and won the Western Heritage Award and, in France, the Lucien Barrière Prize.
In What Order to Read Philipp Meyer
The two novels are not connected: different places, different families, different centuries. You can read them in either order. Publication order shows one thing, though: American Rust looks at the end of American industry in a single town, and The Son goes back to the violence on which a fortune and a state were built.
The Son is the longer and more ambitious book and the usual place to start. If you prefer a tighter story set close to the present, begin with American Rust.
A reading path
1. The Son (2013)
2. American Rust (2009)
The years · 1974–2024
Quick facts about Philipp Meyer
- Known for
- Philipp Meyer is known for The Son, a Pulitzer-finalist saga of one Texas family that he co-created as an AMC television series, and for writing about violence and economic decline in American life.
- 1974
- Born in New York City; grows up in Baltimore
- 2013
- The Son
- 2024
- American Rust: Broken Justice on Prime Video
- Born
- 3 May 1974, New York City; grew up in Hampden, Baltimore
- Education
- Left school at 16 (GED); BA in English, Cornell University; MFA, Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas at Austin
- Before writing
- Bicycle mechanic, trauma-centre orderly, derivatives trader at UBS, EMT and volunteer firefighter
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship (2010); The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” (2010); Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017)
- Television
- Co-creator of AMC’s The Son (2017–2019)
- Lives
- Baltimore, after years in Texas, New York and Montana
The red mark is 2013: The Son, his Pulitzer-finalist novel of the McCullough family.
How Philipp Meyer Writes: Many Voices, Physical Research
Meyer builds his novels from several points of view rather than one. American Rust moves between six characters, from the two young men to Poe’s mother and the town’s police chief, often in stream of consciousness. He has explained the choice simply: “We rarely get the truth about an event if we get just a single version of it.” The Son uses three narrators in three forms, from Eli’s recorded voice to Peter’s diary and Jeanne Anne’s close third person.
His research is physical as well as bookish. For The Son he read about 350 books, then hunted deer with a bow and arrow and butchered and ate them, killed buffalo on a ranch, took a tracking class, learned to eat native Texas plants and spent a week learning to start a fire with sticks. “I think you have to physically prepare yourself to write the part,” he told NPR. “It’s almost like being an actor.”
Both books come back to the same subjects: violence, money and what one generation leaves to the next. American Rust draws on the working-class Baltimore neighbourhood he grew up in; in a 2014 interview he said of it, “That wasn’t quite my childhood, but it was the childhood of all my neighbours.” He took the same material to television, co-creating AMC’s The Son with Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman.
Frequently asked questions about Philipp Meyer’s books
How many books has Philipp Meyer written?
Two novels so far: American Rust (2009) and The Son (2013). He has also published short stories in magazines such as The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. His own website lists two more novels as forthcoming: The City and a novel about the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
What are Philipp Meyer’s books in order?
American Rust (2009), then The Son (2013).
Where should I start with Philipp Meyer?
With The Son, his best-known book and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. If you prefer a shorter novel set closer to the present, start with American Rust.
What is Philipp Meyer’s most famous book?
The Son (2013), the story of the McCullough family in Texas, told through Eli, a Comanche captive turned cattle baron, his son Peter and his great-granddaughter Jeanne Anne. It was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became an AMC series.
Did The Son win the Pulitzer Prize?
No. It was one of the finalists for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It did win the Western Heritage Award in the United States and the Lucien Barrière Prize in France.
Is The Son a TV series?
Yes. AMC ran The Son for two seasons and 20 episodes, from April 2017 to June 2019, with Pierce Brosnan as Eli McCullough. Meyer created the series with Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman, and it was filmed in and around Austin, Texas.
Is American Rust a TV series?
Yes. American Rust first aired on Showtime with Jeff Daniels and Maura Tierney. A second season, American Rust: Broken Justice, was released on Prime Video on 28 March 2024.
Is The Son based on a true story?
The McCulloughs are invented, but the history around them is real: Comanche raids on settler families in the 19th century, the cattle and oil booms, and the violence on the Texas–Mexico border in the 1910s. Meyer said he read about 350 books while researching it.
Is Philipp Meyer writing a new book?
Yes. His website lists The City, a dystopian novel inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, for mid or late 2027, and a novel about Marcus Aurelius for 2028.
Where does Philipp Meyer live?
In Baltimore, where he grew up, after years in Texas, New York and Montana. He was born on 3 May 1974 in New York City.
Footnotes
- Philipp Meyer — Wikipedia
- Bio — philippmeyer.net
- The Son (TV series) — Wikipedia
- American Rust — Penguin Random House
- Philipp Meyer on The Son — NPR Here & Now, 2013
- Philipp Meyer: Art is an Animal Inside Me — Louisiana Channel, 2015
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I think it’s quite important for us as Americans to understand the kind of legacy of violence that we come from.”
— Philipp Meyer, interview on NPR’s Here & Now (2013)
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