Jordan Castro – författare

In an election season, all political parties claim to champion freedom, which highlights the very different ways people think about what it means to be free. This issue of Plough Quarterly explores many dimensions of freedom: not only what people need to be freed from, but what we are set free to do. Contributors look at freedom in light of addiction, disability, asylum, religious liberty, modern slavery, dictatorship, conversion, workers’ rights, theology, the fine arts, and more.On this theme: Sohrab Ahmari reminds Christians of their long tradition of defending workers’ rights.Robert Donnelly reports on the welcome asylum seekers receive on the US southern border.Rosemarie Garland-Thomson considers the terrible freedom of choice a pregnant woman faces.John Barclay looks at freedom and slavery, metaphorical and literal, in the writings to Paul.Daniel J. Sims uncovers his own complicity and compromise in the global aid industry.Santiago Ramos realizes people living under dictatorship value books more than free people doJordan Castro recalls how he sought freedom in fiction and heroin, but found it elsewhere.Joonas Sildre shows how Arvo Pärt remained true to his art under Soviet rule.Pan Yongguang recounts how his church community escaped China together.Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

Brisk and shockingly witty, exuberantly scatological as well as deeply wise, The Novelist is a delight. Jordan Castro is a rare new talent: an author highly attuned to the traditions he is working within while also offering a refreshingly fun sendup of life beset by the endless scroll. —Mary South, author of You Will Never Be ForgottenIn Jordan Castro’s inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he tries and fails to write an autobiographical novel, finding himself instead drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind.  The act of making coffee prompts a reflection on the limits of self-knowledge; an editor’s embarrassing tweet sparks rage at the literary establishment; a meditation on first person versus third examines choice and action; an Instagram post about the ethics of having children triggers mimetic rivalry; the act of doing the dishes is at once ordinary and profound: one of the many small commitments that make up a life of stability.  The Novelist: A Novel pays tribute to Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters, but in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.

"Brisk and shockingly witty, exuberantly scatological as well as deeply wise, The Novelist is a delight. Jordan Castro is a rare new talent: an author highly attuned to the traditions he is working within while also offering a refreshingly fun sendup of life beset by the endless scroll."—Mary South, author of You Will Never Be ForgottenIn Jordan Castro’s inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he tries and fails to write an autobiographical novel, finding himself instead drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind.The act of making coffee prompts a reflection on the limits of self-knowledge; an editor’s embarrassing tweet sparks rage at the literary establishment; a meditation on first person versus third examines choice and action; an Instagram post about the ethics of having children triggers mimetic rivalry; the act of doing the dishes is at once ordinary and profound: one of the many small commitments that make up a life of stability.The Novelist: A Novel pays tribute to Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters, but in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.

A hilarious, suspenseful metaphysical thriller following a day in the life of an English professor who would rather be lifting weights from the author of the cult hit The Novelist Harold, a middling literature professor at a liberal arts college, lives in a state of dissatisfaction and fear. His colleagues and students evoke nothing but disgust and disdain. None of them understand strength, power, and spiritual actualization like he does. His university’s campus—seemingly picturesque—constantly threatens to reveal something sinister.Over the course of a single afternoon, he wanders the halls, sits in meetings, steals from a student, and goes to the gym—all while reflecting on his professional and existential situation. With every line of Harold’s frenetic consciousness, his mundane routine transforms into something more foreboding, culminating in an ingenious twist.Brilliantly imagined and darkly funny, Muscle Man is as much a critique of resentment and contemporary masculinity as a satire on the state of higher education, exploring weakness and strength, rationality and irrationality, the spirit and the flesh, and the individual and the collective.With his minute-to-minute occupation of Harold’s existential disquietude, Castro imbues the novel’s philosophical inquiries with thrilling suspense. Is Harold a raving lunatic whose disdain stems from his own perilous inadequacies, or is there something truly sinister about his colleagues? When all is said and done, is strength a virtue, or a mirage?

At the peak of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Jaxton Bello seeks to take his own life on the George Washington Bridge. He is rescued by Cason Sax, an NYPD Sergeant, and September 11th survivor, who rips Jaxton off the ledge and into the hearts of readers. Cason implores Jaxton to return home and rebuild his life with his wife and daughter. Jaxton must first journey into his past, through his consciousness and along the vacant avenues of a New York City on 'pause.' During this self-reflection, Jaxton trespasses at shuttered venues, outruns pursuing cops, collides with former love interests and crashes a Black Lives Matter protest. "e;The Great Silent Roar"e; is a colorful tale that voyages into a man's wounded soul and delivers a valentine to the most remarkable city in human history. As riots rage, past demons must be slayed if Jaxton is to reignite his flame for living and complete his odyssey home.