The Work of Literary Fiction

I recently spoke with novelist Jordan Castro about his new book Muscle Man from Catapult/Penguin. Castro's 2022 debut The Novelist (which I haven’t read, so I’m relying on quotes from elsewhere to do the work here) established him as "a brutally funny observer of literary ambition and daily tedium." It also occasioned some capital-D Discourse, which (as with all of the Discourse) I vibed and felt rather than read. But I did read Muscle Man, because it was almost as if the novel was written exactly for an ex-academic like me (it wasn’t, but isn’t it pretty to think so?), and now must tell the rest of you that it’s excellent.