Narrating Past and Future: Deindustrialized Landscapes as Resources

Abstract

AbstractA growing body of contemporary American literature, “deindustrialization literature,” most of it by writers who grew up after major plant closings, is set in former industrial areas, such as Detroit and Youngstown. These texts focus on the lives and perspectives of those who have inherited the physical, economic, and cultural landscapes of the rust belt. For these writers and their characters, the past is always an important part of the present. The deindustrialized landscape provides not only the setting but also significant plot elements, themes, and symbols through which these writers narrate stories about young adults wrestling with their identities, affiliations, and opportunities during a period of economic decline and social change. These narratives complicate the relationship between past and present through characters' observations of and interactions in the deindustrialized landscape. With a complex, ambivalent perspective, they suggest the possibility of revival for both communities and individuals. A novel and works of creative non-fiction by Youngstown's Christopher Barzak and the short stories of Detroit's Michael Zadoorian illustrate how representations of abandoned mills and decaying commercial and residential sites can reveal the complex and persistent significance of deindustrialization, decades after closings began, while also pointing toward a future that uses the past as a resource.