THE BOOK OF RUSTY

by Benjamin Drevlow

Cowboy Jamboree Press

Another testament of Benjamin Drevlow

An inventive structure and dark humor balance the raw heartbreak of this honest and brutal cultural critique disguised as a comedy. No one writes about toxic masculinity with as much bravery and empathy as Ben Drevlow.
–Meagan Lucas, author of Songbirds and Stray Dogs, Editor-in-Chief of Reckon Review

What I want to say about The Book of Rusty feels like praise Rusty himself wouldn’t he tends to shrug off whatever encouragement comes his way, usually with something funny or profane or self-deprecating. But whether or not he’d agree, this is a time-bending, mind-bending book of misadventures in which a guy who can’t catch a break tries like hell to save his own life, whether that means walking through traffic in stolen underwear or finding the words to tell a story about it.
–Caitlin Horrocks author of The Vexations , Life Among the Terranauts , and This Is Not Your City

One hand cleaning the shitter and the other busy writing his mem-wah is where we meet our main man Rusty. Do you want the truth or do you want a story? Well, Rusty’s doing his best to give the world both if he could only catch a break that isn’t his own nose. If you’re looking for a fairytale you can stop reading now. This is a story of humanity and how real life shakes out for the great big all of us who dare to wake up in the morning. And when you deal in the prickly thicket of human-ness, things tend to get a little dirty and painful. The Book of Rusty covers love, loss, basketball, time travel, and the entire gamut of human existence at a page tearing speed. Get in and buckle up, naked angel lady, we’re going back in time, and forward again.
–Micah Schnable, singer/guitarist of Two Cow Garage

The Book of Rusty is a circus fest of outsiders and freaks, thrown into a masterful whirlpool of mayhem. Drevlow is a skillful ratskellar tale-teller, drawing from dregs and putrid ripening of growth, splintering into unforeseen factions. Rusty wrings the reader out with its unrelenting twists, its downspun dogma, its rope-a-dope brilliance! You won’t want to put it down!
–Robert Vaughan, author of ASKEW

Drevlow weaves a tumultuous coming-of-age fevered carnival. The Book of Rusty is a time-bending kaleidoscope of past and present, straddles the trauma of adolescence, ruptured family tragedy, and the heft of parental dismissal. Clawing over landmines of guilt and rage, Drevlow’s staggering pathos, implodes with the claustrophobic culmination of hemmed in yesterdays. Get a copy! Unforgettable and urgent. LOVE!
–Meg Tuite, author of White Van

Benjamin Drevlow is not one to pull punches. The Book of Rusty is where he hits hardest with incisive prose that communicate a story about masculinity, ambition, basketball, love, cycles, the nature of time, storytelling itself, and plenty more. Drevlow’s greatest gift to his readers is a compulsion toward truth in all things, as even the smallest victories are earned via grit and blunt-force trauma. The reader can’t help but root for Rusty when his chances at glory are slimmest and most distant. In the end, Rusty represents something fundamental about this foolhardy endeavor we call humanity, and no one has told the tale with quite Drevlow’s vision before.
–Mike Chin, author of My Grandfather’s an Immigrant, and So Is Yours

Drevlow has spent his career bleeding on the page and how there’s any blood left is nothing short of a miracle. And that’s what this is. A miracle of truth and a miracle of life. Here is a testament that breathes and bruises and, ultimately, heals.
–Jared Yates Sexton, author of The Man They Wanted Me to Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making

389 pages, Paperback

Published October 19, 2022

Reviews

[David Staggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a copy of this book to review. Drevlow writes with a reckless abandon. Rusty is an irreverent, visceral tale of grief and trauma and inadequacy. It’s poignant and fresh. A wonderfully executed take that delivers 100%.

[Shaun McMichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Book of Rusty, Benjamin Drevlow brings us to the brink where we teeter with his protagonist, Rusty, waiting to see who will talk him down from the ledge of self-obliteration. Cock-teasing Big Sheila? His overbearingly optimistic mother? His aloof older brother? As scarred as Rusty is from his eldest, abusive brother’s mysterious suicide and his subsequent life of rejection, it will be no easy feat. Told in a down-to-earth, bottomed-out Bukowski style, Rusty’s caper haymakers itself through abuse, traumatic grief, housefires, dead dogs, b-ball hazings, boozehound benders, ambivalent attachment, and breast-beating as Rusty debates which side of Hamlet’s conundrum to throw himself at the hardest. To read or not to read? This volume goes down like a fifth of Fireball and leaves you with a hangover so painful it might just be the feeling of self-actualization.

A vertiginously fun metafictional study in voice.

[Colin Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Drevlow's version of slapping himself in the forehead for almost 400 pages. It is a rough ride "mem-wah" that drags the reader through muck and puke that will be all too familiar to any young midwestern white boy, especially the screw-ups. This auto-crucifixion is also highly balanced, structured in episodes that radiate out from what may or may not have been one of the main character's suicide attempts, circling around, coming back to it. You may think you know what Drevlow is going to bitch about (the micro penis, the dead brother, the mother, the fire) but there are some surprising nuggets of filth in here, such as the episodes surrounding the girls basketball team for whom our hero-loser mops up, all those hams and chests and frustrated lust. Get you some Drevlow, folks -- bend your knee at the altar of Rusty.

[Travis Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in the distinct voice of its loser antihero, Rusty—a pathetic sad sap case who wallows in loss and tragedy instead of dusting himself off and becoming an active participant in any sort of redeeming arc. If there's any redemption at all, it's that Rusty yearns to be a writer, shaping experience into art so that others can see and feel what it's like to be him. Written in a series of time jumps, The Book of Rusty has Kurt Vonnegut vibes structurally, with A Confederacy of Dunces' kind of sociological tourism in substance, where readers dip in, observe trauma and dysfunction, and thank Christ they're not Rusty, even if they see a little of themselves therein. Benjamin Drevlow is a talented writer and this book is a great read.

[Frank Reardon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's just say it's my favorite thing Ben has written, and I read a good handful of his work. I kept getting a Harry Crews/Kurt Vonnegut mash-up vibe while reading it. Not to say he copies them, he certainly doesn't, Ben's work is all his own. I'm only trying to add a little flavor in case you haven't read it. It's truthful, a reality punch, but also witty, funny. A lot happens in the book, Ben takes some chances, and they all work out, IMO. It's a must-read. You should read it!

I'm not entirely sure where Ben is heading with his work, but wherever he's headed he's driving there 100 miles an hour, with a double cheeseburger in one hand, The Book of Revelations in the other, steering the car with his knees, and a time machine on his lap. The book is 100% brilliant.

[Al Kratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s pretty much no other book like this that I know of. Maybe it’s like Bukowski’s step-grandkid. Maybe it’s like HBO’s Eastbound and Down where Kenny Powers never makes it beyond the high school baseball team and the tragic comedy has more tragedy than comedy. Maybe it is the poster boy of almost every trigger warning possible. But it for sure is unique and honest and passionate and gutsy and sincerely twisted. It is for sure an example the kind of stuff the small press is capable of publishing that more people should hear about and read.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Crews once said (I'm paraphrasing here) that the writer's job is to get naked on the page. I don't think any writer I've ever read takes that adage to heart more than Benjamin Drevlow. His previous novel was a love story in reverse that had my jaw dropping with the full-frontal soul-baring on every page. This one is a madcap, time-hopping exploration of a life flavored by grief, regret, and feelings of inadequacy that gets just as naked.

[Lew Clifton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authentic and compelling, Drevlow’s The Book of Rusty is a fast-paced romp that’s engaging until the very last page. Rusty, the story’s vulnerable, blue-collar protagonist endures a series of events that keep the reader laughing and heart-heavy, often in the same chapter. This was a fun read! 5 stars!!!

[Patrick Trotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the book in a few sittings and loved it. Utterly readable but doesn’t lack depth either. The style is unique. Very conversational tone. Hooked from the very beginning. Definitely recommend it!

[Ryan Bry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was almost prepared to give this a one star review or skip the book after I read just a few chapters but something kept pulling me back - there is a sloppy brilliance here, a hurt that goes into far dimensions, but there's also a smile that says I own this nonsense, I own this difficulty and there isn't a demon from hell that can take that from me. It was a delight to keep returning to this book's chapters after its perspective clicked and I could see the bleak, wimpy light of the bleating prose as heading towards a pool of insight that could conquer worlds and so much more. Thanks for the book, Benjamin. I see your efforts as generative of a profoundly human touch. Again and again, thank you for healing the pain. - Ryan