Colossus: A Novel

(Hardback)

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Description

Teddy Starr has it all. A married father of three, he's a popular pastor in a small Midwestern town, a well-heeled real estate mogul, and a possible future congressman. But he's got a dark secret from his not-so-distant past that could unravel the life he has meticulously assembled in 2020s America. Teddy is not all that he seems, and everything is about to change.

Reviews

Praise for Ross Barkan

"Barkan's ear for speech is impec-ca-ble; pages-long con-ver-sa-tions float by, with a pal-pa-ble rhythm and a clear, con-sis-tent voice."--Benjamin Selesnick, Jewish Book Council

"A smart, stylish and original New York novel. Barkan knows the city inside and out, and Glass Century evokes the New York of the 70s as well as any recent work of fiction I can think of while also centering a powerful, decades-long love story that is as complex and believable as it is ultimately moving."--Adelle Waldman

"Tennis and love and the city, and the insatiable fire that is history. Glass Century has it all. Barkan's novel is both a marvelous paean to NYC and a spectacularly moving novel."--Junot Daz

"Glass Century is old-fashioned in a good way, moving storytelling in the classic social realist style about the only taboo kink left, adultery."--Nell Zink

"The soundtrack to Ross Barkan's new novel should be a wailing siren. Glass Century keeps pace with an anxious and changing New York as it tracks its protagonists from the Fear City day of the early seventies through September 11 and onward to the trauma of COVID-19. Generous and funny, this smart, expansive book kept me utterly engrossed."--Christopher Sorrentino

"You won't be able to put it down. Ross Barkan captures 'the drift of time away from wherever you used to be.' You are all the characters, each scene engrossing as quicksand, sucking you in. It starts like an inverse Taming of the Shrew (you nearly plotz with laughing) and transforms into a profound meditation on marriage, tennis, family, politics and the vicissitudes of life. Glass Century, with its two main characters, Mona Glass and Saul Plotz, mirrors the monumental twin towers that loom in the novel: 'the ocean of dark sky pressed against the long, thick glass.'"--Jill Hoffman

"Barkan ambitiously reconciles the restlessness and enormity of the last half century without succumbing to the pretense and superficiality of idealism or relatability. This alone is a feat, but by its end, we have become the empire and the empire has become us."--Zain Khalid

Author Bio

Ross Barkan is the author of five books, including the novel Glass Century. He's a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, a columnist for New York Magazine, and the editor-in-chief of The Metropolitan Review, a books and culture review publication.