CLEVELAND, Ohio - If USA Network's riveting new drama "Damnation" often plays like a powerful collaboration between Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck ("The Grapes of Wrath") and pioneering mystery writer Dashiell Hammett ("The Maltese Falcon"), there's a good reason for that.
The dynamic cable series' creator, principal writer, executive producer and show runner, Tony Tost, cites these American literary giants as two primary influences.
"They're unquestionably two of my favorite writers," Tost said during a telephone interview. "The world of John Steinbeck as presented in 'The Grapes of Wrath,' 'Of Mice and Men' and 'Cannery Row' was a big influence, as was Dashiell Hammett's first novel, 'Red Harvest," which is set in a Western mining town. All of that went into the soup when writing 'Damnation.' "
Premiering at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, on USA Network, the series is set in the American heartland during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Killian Scott stars as Seth Davenport, a man posing as small-town Iowa preacher who views Jesus as an "outlaw revolutionary." So Davenport's goal is to spark a rebellion against he status quo.
That means inspiring the rural community to rise up against the bankers and businessmen he views as the agents of evil. Davenport sees the coming conflict as a battle between avaricious corporate types and the exploited working class, between the haves and the have-nots, between greed and God.
Standing in his way is a professional strikebreaker named Creeley Turner (Logan Marshall-Green). He has been hired by an industrial tycoon to put an end to Davenport's uprising, "by any means necessary."
Also going into the soup that became "Damnation" were the films of director Sam Peckinpah, author-historian Studs Terkel's "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression," the books of mystery writer James Ellroy, and Marilynne Robinson's Iowa-set novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Gilead."
"When I told my agent over breakfast that I had this wonderful idea for a show set during the Great Depression with farmers and labor issues, she did an actual spit take," Tost said. "So I wrote the first two episodes to show how much fun and how intriguing it could be."
Before turning his attention to screenwriting, Tost was an acclaimed poet and critic. His first book of poetry, "Invisible Bride," won the 2003 Walt Whitman Award. His 2011 book, "Johnny Cash's American Recordings," was published as part of the 33 1/3 series on classic albums. Cash and Merle Haggard are his "musical heroes," and, like Steinbeck and Hammett, are major influences.
"You sometimes can understand the country by looking at these almost hyper-American figures like Johnny Cash and Mark Twain, who are such real people, yet also are almost folklore figures," Tost said.
He learned the TV trade through a five-season hitch as a writer and producer on the A&E and Netflix series "Longmire." This led to the opportunity to pursue "Damnation," which also stars Sarah Jones, Chasten Harmon, Melinda Page Hamilton, Christopher Heyerdahl and Joe Adler.
The other executive producers on the cable drama are Adam Kane ("American Gods"), James Mangold ("Logan"), Guymon Casady ("Game of Thrones") and Daniel Rappaport ("Office Space").
"The show is a little bit tricky show to describe," Tost said. "It's the Dust Bowl world. It has the feel of a Western. It has the strikebreaking. It has the religious themes. It has the pulp conspiratorial element. I've said it's one part Clint Eastwood, one part John Steinbeck, one part James Ellroy."
Being a poet actually helped in the transition to screenwriting. Being a critic? Well, not so much.
"I kind of had to take the critic's side of my brain out behind the woodshed and kill it," Tost said. "You can't tell stories by thinking about what it means culturally. You have to start with the emotional heart. You have to be at a more vulnerable place, so it's much easier to access the poet side. It's much more emotion- and image-based.
"Also, poetry is ideally getting things down to the minimum, so every word counts. And when you're writing a script, you want every line, every shot, to count. That's more of a poet's sensibility."
Also helping in the transition was his love of television. When it comes to citing the major TV influences, Tost can't get away from writer-producers named David. His list of favorite all-time shows starts with David Chase's "The Sopranos," David Milch's "Deadwood" and David Lynch's "Twin Peaks."
Although set during the Depression, "Damnation" is a series packing a tremendous thematic punch for 2017 viewers.
"There are some core fundamental issues in this country that always are going to be relevant," Tost said. "Then if you look at the 1930s - a time when there was increasing distrust in institutions, there was fear of finding meaningful work, there is this onslaught of new technology taking away jobs - the relevance is almost inescapable.
"We don't push that. We don't have to. The parallels are just there."
PREVIEW
Damnation
What: A cable drama set in Iowa during the Great Depression.
When: 10 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7.
Where: USA Network
