Paul Hertneky is an American journalist and author best known for his 2016 book Rust Belt Boy: Stories of an American Childhood, about the Baby boomers he grew up with in the rust belt mill town of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where he was once a steel worker.
Hertneky graduated from Ambridge Area High School in 1973, the University of Pittsburgh and Bennington College.
[2] Hertneky worked for a steel mill during college, then took a job at a trucking company, before moving to Massachusetts to become a journalist.
[5] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette describes the essays that comprise Rust Belt Boy as a series of 26 vignettes, that, taken as a whole, "form an homage to a lost way of life" through "incantatory writing.
"[6] National Book Award finalist, Sy Montgomery calls it "An essential but overlooked portrait of America's blue collar heart" that "deserves to become a classic."