Colossus by Ross Barkan
A stark and unsettling portrait of success, in the vein of Philip Roth and Jonathan Franzen, that revives the long-established intersection between ambition and corruption in the pursuit of the American dream.
Teddy Starr has it all. A beloved pastor in a small Midwestern town, a devoted husband and father of three, and a rising real estate magnate, he has built a life that gleams with virtue and success. Self-made in every sense, Teddy is a man of conviction, or at least it seems. But behind the pulpit and the polished smile lies a fractured past, and when a figure from that buried life reemerges, the once-sturdy walls of his world begin to fall.
As scandal and ambition collide, Colossus becomes the story of American hunger for reinvention and the blatant self-interest beneath its surface. Written with the moral gravity of Robert Penn Warren and the psychological insight of Philip Roth, Ross Barkan offers a timely update on the examination of the American identity in an age of performance and decay.
Author
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.
Praise
“Colossus earns its grand title. . . Family secrets are nothing new to family saga novels, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one with such diabolical ingenuity.”—Hugh Blanton, Quadrant Magazine
“A canny, twisty satire of all-American posturing.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Barkan has written a challenging portrait of a thoroughly modern man. With the rigorous detail familiar to readers of Ben Lerner, he explores how far Teddy will go to renounce his past.”—Library Journal
“The slick, rich, right-wing pastor Teddy Starr is a charismatic confidence man in the American vein (part Elmer Gantry, part Jay Gatsby, part Donald Trump). As fast talking as he is, as amoral as he is, Barkan gives him a fascinating, complex inner life. This thrilling novel skewers the cynicism of our current moment, but it also strikingly renders the human drama of fathers and sons, the tension between legacy and possibility.”—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward
“Ross Barkan's Colossus begins firmly inside the troubled pastoral sublime of John Updike and Richard Ford, but it's a feint—or a partial feint. What Barkan has in mind is something far more expansive: a broad interrogation of the American psyche in its myriad conflicting parts. The result is masterful, as thrillingly devious—and as brilliantly controlled—as Philip Roth's The Counterlife.”—Matthew Specktor, author of The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood
