In 2019, a man takes a copyediting job at his local newspaper. In 1939, a boy stands outside a theater and hatches a plan to sneak in. And on a cold, rainy night in 1982, a college student gives a bloodied hitchhiker a ride. Not one of these individuals is aware of how these seemingly isolated events will change their lives forever, or the inexorable connections between them.

Rust on the Allegheny is a historical fiction novel told through the shifting perspectives of multiple generations of the MacCulloch family, a bloodline said to be cursed by perennial misfortune. It is the story of one family’s messy and at times dysfunctional relationship with their hometown of Latonia City, Pennsylvania — where moldering Victorian manors and empty art deco theaters tell of the rich heritage and industrial downturn of America’s Rust Belt, with glimpses of hope for the future.