Acquisition: Debut novel by Zachary Solomon
Lanternfish Press is pleased to announce the acquisition of Zachary Solomon’s debut novel, A Brutal Design, for publication in Spring 2024.
After the fascist takeover of his unnamed European homeland and the murder of his parents, Samuel Zelnik, a queer, Jewish architecture student, thinks that he and his friends are bound for the gulag—or a fate even worse. Instead, he receives an unexpected offer of work in the experimental utopian city of Duma, where all people are free to do as they please. Duma not only offers him freedom, but also a chance to find his missing uncle, who may have settled there. Once in Duma, he reunites with his former instructor, the exiled avant garde artist Miriana, and her assistant, his reactionary ex-classmate Erich. Awed by the city’s brutalist architecture and confused by the bizarre behavior of its citizens, Zelnik searches fruitlessly for Uncle Vaska. Instead, he discovers Miriana’s “installations,” works of art that equally enchant and repel him—and drive him toward an obliterating realization. Is Duma the paradise it pretends to be or is it something else entirely?
Zachary C. Solomon is from Miami, Florida. He received an MFA from Brooklyn College, where he was a Truman Capote fellow. He lives with his wife, the novelist Mandy Berman, and their daughter in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Follow Zachary on Twitter and Instagram, and visit him online at zachary-solomon.com.
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