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Glantz
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 19, 2026
This is a book that exists in the shadows, heavy, moist, claustrophobic shadows that obscure the inner motivations of its large, lumbering protagonist. Glantz frequents a strangely paranoid bar, attends mass on a regular basis, and seeks an absolution that no one can grant him. He lives with his sister who has taken him in despite her best instincts and sense that he will never reform (from what?) and harbours uncomfortable obsessions. But what is most disturbing is that he seems to prey on the concerns and paranoia of others, drawing them into his impenetrable orbit. If one might die, he may be a catalyst, who can say? He may even be an active force. A dark, grimy fable.
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2026/06/18/a-...
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2026/06/18/a-...
February 3, 2026
I saw a review of this 3:am mag (just rejected a story of mine but anyway) and I thought the reviewer made the book sound intriguing enough to buy and also force goodreads to add. The review mentioned something along the lines of Ryan keeping use in that melancholic headspace that comes so much easier to writers outside of the Anglosphere. I think that claim has some merit, though is slightly exasperated. This a dark, brooding point of few about a mysterious man in a mysterious country with a mysterious capital under a mysterious regime. It makes sense that an American emigre would be the author. Overall I liked it and would like to see it expanded into a broader novel (even though it is already long for a novella).
July 14, 2026
"It was…simply a matter of waiting, waiting for the words to form and to arrange themselves, to unfold, left to right, top to bottom, invisibly, indecipherable, and mutely that he might utter them to and for himself alone."
The protagonist might speak 50 words over the course of the novel. Not even an ostensibly omniscient narrator seems sure of Glantz’s motivations, desires, thoughts, actions, etc.
"…Glantz nodded deeply into his chins, a belch, perhaps, suppressed…"
"Perhaps." The third person doesn’t relate what Glantz sees, feels, thinks. We get what he “would have” seen, thought, felt. (Who or what exactly is narrating this story?)
"Somewhere, a reader shifted in their seat."
Glantz is Meursault or Molloy. He has nothing to say to you. He is trying to pray, but he can’t. The words won’t come.
"Glantz lay there, arms straight, at rest, and waited, waited for the words, his puckered
mouth yet to move… "
He is a lone wolf. Like the author. By which I do not mean the author of Glantz (or not just that particular author), mind you, but any author. That shadowy figure removed to a well-lighted room generating the lines of thought you are trying to follow.
Our Glantz scribbles in his notebook. Or intends to. Is himself an author manqué.
A man walks out in front of a bus. Thus begins Glantz. The suicide(?) has some connection to the title character. At first, this poor unfortunate seems to be a sort of sacrificial Septimus Smith (from Mrs. Dalloway). An avatar of Glantz. But no, there is some personal connection. Shrouded in mystery.
There is a game of good priest bad priest. The bad priest [spoiler alert]. Blind and dumb in the end. In the beginning? If you are looking for someone to get behind, to identify with in this novel–if you are a literary agent, say, or an acquisitions editor looking to dole out advances–go fuck yourself.
"And you can’t pray, and so what? So don’t. What good is there in it, Glantz, have you considered that? In those words; words, words, words. Talking to yourself, justifying yourself; puffing yourself up and putting yourself down, and asking, asking, asking. “Me, me, me,” in the end, is all words is, no matter where you direct your thoughts."
Stigmata. Smerdyakovian animal abuse. Yeats’/McCarthy’s/Dostoevsky’s rough beast?
Barroom to church and back again.
There is a squirrely witness. To what it is unclear. Glantz will hound him. Wordlessly.
Cardplayers on TV. They hold their cards close to their chests.
Saint Anthony is the patron saint of lost souls.
The landlord at the bar. Insinuations.
There is a sort of genre pleasure to be had in the deadpan nothings whispered throughout the narrative. The between-the-lines tempests of an NDiaye novel.
"I know what you are." Glantz’s sister’s lover works up the courage to inform him near the end of the novel. Standing in the doorway like Dorothy with her little dog, confronting the wicked witch.
But she never says what [he is].
The protagonist might speak 50 words over the course of the novel. Not even an ostensibly omniscient narrator seems sure of Glantz’s motivations, desires, thoughts, actions, etc.
"…Glantz nodded deeply into his chins, a belch, perhaps, suppressed…"
"Perhaps." The third person doesn’t relate what Glantz sees, feels, thinks. We get what he “would have” seen, thought, felt. (Who or what exactly is narrating this story?)
"Somewhere, a reader shifted in their seat."
Glantz is Meursault or Molloy. He has nothing to say to you. He is trying to pray, but he can’t. The words won’t come.
"Glantz lay there, arms straight, at rest, and waited, waited for the words, his puckered
mouth yet to move… "
He is a lone wolf. Like the author. By which I do not mean the author of Glantz (or not just that particular author), mind you, but any author. That shadowy figure removed to a well-lighted room generating the lines of thought you are trying to follow.
Our Glantz scribbles in his notebook. Or intends to. Is himself an author manqué.
A man walks out in front of a bus. Thus begins Glantz. The suicide(?) has some connection to the title character. At first, this poor unfortunate seems to be a sort of sacrificial Septimus Smith (from Mrs. Dalloway). An avatar of Glantz. But no, there is some personal connection. Shrouded in mystery.
There is a game of good priest bad priest. The bad priest [spoiler alert]. Blind and dumb in the end. In the beginning? If you are looking for someone to get behind, to identify with in this novel–if you are a literary agent, say, or an acquisitions editor looking to dole out advances–go fuck yourself.
"And you can’t pray, and so what? So don’t. What good is there in it, Glantz, have you considered that? In those words; words, words, words. Talking to yourself, justifying yourself; puffing yourself up and putting yourself down, and asking, asking, asking. “Me, me, me,” in the end, is all words is, no matter where you direct your thoughts."
Stigmata. Smerdyakovian animal abuse. Yeats’/McCarthy’s/Dostoevsky’s rough beast?
Barroom to church and back again.
There is a squirrely witness. To what it is unclear. Glantz will hound him. Wordlessly.
Cardplayers on TV. They hold their cards close to their chests.
Saint Anthony is the patron saint of lost souls.
The landlord at the bar. Insinuations.
There is a sort of genre pleasure to be had in the deadpan nothings whispered throughout the narrative. The between-the-lines tempests of an NDiaye novel.
"I know what you are." Glantz’s sister’s lover works up the courage to inform him near the end of the novel. Standing in the doorway like Dorothy with her little dog, confronting the wicked witch.
But she never says what [he is].
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews