Reviews
“15 Small Press Books You Don’t Want to Miss This Fall” — Electric Literature
“Exceptional, emotionally engaging, and a riveting read from start to finish…that will have an authentic resonance with the reader. With his distinctive and narrative driven storytelling style, author Patrick McGinty raises his novel to an impressive level of literary excellence.” — Midwest Book Review
“Patrick McGinty takes readers from the Rust Belt to Wall Street in Town College City Road” — Pittsburgh City Paper
“McGinty’s precise depictions are in equal parts surprising and edifying as readers come to know Kurt—and Kurt, in turn, comes to know himself.” — Pittsburgh Review of Books
“An emotionally complex coming-of-age story” — Kirkus Reviews
Praise
“Personal and sweeping, honed to the marvel of the moment, this coming-of-age against the backdrop of a tech (r)evolution offers subtle critique about what we value and why—both in ourselves and others. Neither a hero nor quite an underdog, Kurt faces challenges that reflect the fragmented and fragile social structure that Millennials and Gen Z occupy.”
— Alex Myers, author of Revolutionary
“No one concocts a world like McGinty. This unflinching odyssey illuminates the hidden costs of ambition and the pull of home with breathtaking clarity. Town College City Road will leave readers both shattered and strangely hopeful—a brilliant, unmissable novel that cements a major literary talent.”
— Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
“McGinty’s work is shockingly, Joyceanly immersive. To read Town College City Road is to see your own world that much more clearly.”
— Sarah Marshall, host of You’re Wrong About
Synopsis
Town College City Road follows Kurt Boozel from childhood in an insular Northwestern Pennsylvania steel town through life’s booms and busts, and back to his Rust Belt home. As a teenage math whiz, Kurt is bullied but relishes the opportunity to tutor his high school’s star athlete. After their friendship ends in a public and emasculating act of violence, Kurt steers his life progressively eastward, first as a closeted economics major clinging to the coattails of his richer fraternity brothers, then to New York for a high-pressure finance job. After turning his attention to the fantastic promises of the cryptocurrency market, he finds himself unmoored while driving across Pennsylvania in the midst of a snowstorm to be the best man at his brother’s wedding.
Through his struggles to pass multiple masculine initiations, both real and metaphorical, Kurt ultimately discovers that the only thing tougher than running away from rural mythology is constructing a new one.