Demolition Night
Ross Barkan
October 15, 2018 / 234 pages
ISBN ‎9780692071380 Paperback / $14.99

Debut novel by Ross Barkan, contributor to The Village Voice, The Guardian, The New Yorker, etc.

"Barkan's punchy prose is terrific ... There's a dash of Bradbury, a healthy helping of Anthony Burgess, a scary reflection of our Orwellian times."
— Kirkus Reviews

"Tough-minded and smart, Ross Barkan triangulates a near-future Amazoogface plutocracy with a gritty 1979 Gotham to pinpoint that moment you could most acutely feel it all going to shit, i.e., somewhen around today. Demolition Night's insightful analysis gets coupled with deeply entertaining comic-book swerves to form a satisfying and sharp debut."
— Eugene Lim

"Reading Ross Barkan's Demolition Night is a giddy and vertigo-inducing ride on a New York wrecking ball as it wildly but deftly lurches from the dyspeptic late 1970s to an imagined near-future dystopia like a mashup of The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 with The Crying of Lot 49 or of Mickey Spillane with Octavia E. Butler. Shrewd, funny, confounding and mysterious, the book has an irresistible trajectory, with countless trippy set-pieces that are themselves worth the price of the ride."
— Richard Grayson