Book Description
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?
Praise For This Book
The New Yorker, A Best Book of the YearGQ, A Best Book of 2025
Our Culture Magazine, A Most Anticipated Book of Fall
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Although Harold is not literary fiction’s first obsessive ruminator, what makes Muscle Man feel so plugged into the moment is how common the predicament feels . . . Castro’s talent lies in meticulously creating a realistic—and entertaining—portrait of one man’s compulsions, bringing individual texture to a curious social phenomenon. His books are satirical, poking light fun at the narrators and their beliefs, but also firmly empathetic . . . Muscle Man is a lot of fun." —Jeremy Gordon, The Atlantic
"This novel includes dark secrets but it also introduces a satisfying streak of humor as we follow him through one ridiculous, dangerous day." —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
"Nearly every one of Castro’s acerbic, unfiltered paragraphs contains a bristling insight about literature, weight lifting, or academic politics." —The New Yorker
"College environs have long been fertile ground for stories of queasy striving and paper-cutthroat behavior . . . But as times change, so do the makes and models. In Muscle Man, by Jordan Castro, misanthropic, protein-maxxing literature professor Harold skulks around Shepherd College, avoiding his basement classroom at all costs . . . [A] study of masculinity and personal gain." —Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair
"Castro understands better than most that not only contemporary life but contemporary consciousness have become hopelessly contaminated by the internet . . . Castro is a precise and immensely readable stylist. He’s fun to read, and very funny." —Robert Rubsam, Vulture
"For all the chat about male novelists being an endangered species, Castro proves there are still some fine examples around." —GQ
"Harold is Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov if he lurked on weightlifting meme accounts . . . There’s a coldly funny quality to Castro’s imagery that appeals to the senses . . . As far as 'alt-lit' goes . . . Castro is one of the better ones. No ketamine autofiction, no chronic masturbation, no braindead posts as sentences. The moral arc of the novel suggests that if you can’t hack it as an ironic reactionary, pivot to being a sincere one." —Madeleine Adams, Dirt
"Muscle Man succeeds as a sociological allegory and rewards re-reading . . . [It] is Swiftian, in that it shows there’s no true spiritual infection that is not the common property of all men." —Matthew Gasda, First Things
"Muscle Man resembles The Novelist with its stream-of-consciousness narrative, detailed philosophies, and thoughtful writing." —Emma Foley, Cracks in Postmodernity
"While the sentences in Muscle Man [...] mimic the rhythm of a neurotic consciousness to mesmerising effect, for all its internet-native navel-gazing, Castro’s work maintains an ironic distance from therapy-speak, which makes it a self-aware and funny read, and it is subtly distinguished by a religious temperament, which makes it a serious one . . . [L]ike all good novelists, Castro’s work is layered enough to resist categorical interpretation. The book can be read as a critique of the homogenising effect of too much individualism, and as a critique of the kind of person who rebels against it . . . In the end, Muscle Man offers a wry and meme-literate vision of blokey intellectualism and distills an ethos of lifting weights and reading literature . . . What Muscle Man demonstrates [...] is that Castro has found a Dostoevskian mode of his own. It is this tension, handled with mischief and seriousness in equal measure, that makes him worth reading." —Brad Stotten, Quiellete
"Castro’s sophomore novel . . . promises to finally to reveal the truth: that you can be a jock and a nerd at the same time and, if you work hard and persevere, you, too can override the positive mental health effects of working out through the sheer force of neuroticism." —Calvin Kasulke, Literary Hub
"Entrancing. Harold is an underground man of sorts, whose musings lead to fascinating tangents on masculinity, lifting culture, higher education, and literature . . . [Castro] breathes new life into the campus novel as Harold’s experiences capture the precarity and commercialization of academia in this gloriously bewitching, funny, and meditative tale." —Booklist (starred review)
"The nuanced character arcs satisfy and inject an unexpected dose of optimism. Existential dark humor shot through with heart." —Kirkus Reviews
"Though certain preoccupations remain—the male body, the debasement of intellectual life in America—Castro has abandoned metafictional games in favor of a densely interior character study that proves to be both riskier and more cryptic than his debut . . . Castro has cleverly engineered Muscle Man to let [his narrator] have it both ways: an impassioned jeremiad against contemporary mores contained within a send-up of itself." —Adam Wilson, Bookforum
“Muscle Man is a triumph. It’s like reading Walter Benjamin or Thomas Bernhard on creatine powder and gym memes. Jordan Castro is an outrageously gifted novelist who has given us a truly original fable of the contemporary moment. Everything in this novel is feral and brilliant, and dizzyingly funny. Castro is one-of-one, and this book is pure heat.” —Brandon Taylor, author of The Late Americans
"A strong stark novel that the few men who do read, must read. But women are also more than welcome, as is everyone with a heart." —Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Netanyahus
