Set on the eve of the 2009 G20 Summit protests, City of Clans follows Jeremy Starcevic, a community college student struggling with his identity and sexuality. By day, Jeremy works for a party goods distributor in the heart of the city and attends classes. By night, he drinks to excess and self-sabotages at the urging of friends. As the son of a professional baseball player, Jeremy grew up playing sports and molding himself into a certain type of guy—a type embodied in Jeremy’s best friend and roommate, the hypermasculine Scott Melloy. But when Scott commits an unthinkable act, Jeremy is forced to acknowledge that the friend he idolized is a sexual predator, and his carefully constructed sense of self crumbles.
Jeremy begins a journey of healing and self-reflection that carries him back to his family and his one true friend, Katrina Kovacs, a photography major who opens his eyes to societal issues he’s always ignored. A story of redemption, City of Clans captures the resiliency of the human spirit and explores hidden truths of masculinity, sexuality, and self.
“Geoff Peck's City of Clans is a sharp, emotionally raw novel about the forces that shape us—friendship, family, expectation, masculinity—and the creeping fear that we’ve already made the wrong choices. Jeremy is a flawed, yearning, and deeply familiar character as he stumbles through the haze of early adulthood. Peck renders his world with a cutting, observant gaze, capturing both the rush of reckless nights and the quiet dread of mornings after. A compelling, unforgettable portrait of a young man trapped between the person he was and the future that feels increasingly out of reach.” —Alexandra Chang, author, Tomb Sweeping
“Brutal but spiked with hope, City of Clans is the antidote to toxic masculinity we’ve been waiting for. It’s a lively, if chilling novel that takes shades from The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and A Little Life and applies them to the Pennsylvania steel mills, warehouses, and college bars of the early Obama era. Peck’s characters—the eager-to-evolve Big Jerm, the insecure alpha male Scotty Ballgame, and the resilient Kat—are fully alive in these pages that take a sledgehammer to the violent sexual politics of a fortunately bygone era. Most surprising is Peck’s intent. Peck returns us to this dark historical moment not merely to revel in the pain but to ask the all-too-essential question: How do we move on from trauma and heal?”—Salvatore Pane, author, The Neorealist in Winter
“I’ve never read a novel that so ruthlessly examines traditional American masculinity—and from the perspective of a character both trapped in and perpetuating its continued harm. With boldness and nuance, Peck builds a tense, urgent story that peers beneath the surface of his characters’ worst impulses—then goes deeper still, to the antiquated social structures they work to maintain and the tender vulnerability they’ll do anything to avoid. I experienced every feeling possible while tearing through this brilliant debut: anger, bewilderment, sadness, heartbreak—and ultimately, hope.”—Ashleigh Bell Pedersen, author, The Crocodile Bride
