Shirt a Phobia

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Jordan Castro (born 1992 or 1993) is an American writer and editor.[1] He is the author of two books of poetry and two novels. He was the editor of Tyrant Books online magazine from late 2016 until it closed in 2021. His second novel, Muscle Man, was published in September, 2025.

Career

The Novelist, published in 2022 by Soft Skull Press, received positive reviews in Bookforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, and, among other magazines, Wired, which stated that Castro’s novel contained “some of the most accurate—and accurately abject—depictions of the experience of using the internet ever captured in fiction.”[2] Michael Schaub, writing for NPR, which chose Castro’s novel as a best book of the year, stated, “Castro’s fiction debut is as meta as it gets, but that’s part of its immense charm.”[3]

A 2025 profile in Washington Post called Castro “something of a cultural observer himself — albeit a reluctant one” and “one of the darlings of the New York literary scene.”[4]

Muscle Man

Castro’s second novel, Muscle Man, was published in 2025. A review in the New Yorker stated about it, “Nearly every one of Castro’s acerbic, unfiltered paragraphs contains a bristling insight about literature, weight lifting, or academic politics.”[5] It was named a best book of the year by the New Yorker[6] and GQ.[7]

Writing style

Castro is influenced by Thomas Bernhard and Nicholson Baker, among other writers,[8] and has stated he is “the new Dostoevsky.”[9]

Bibliography

Novels

Poetry

  • Young Americans (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2013)
  • If I Really Wanted to Feel Happy I’d Feel Happy Already (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2014)

Anthology, as editor

References

  1. ^ Code, Josh. “A Muscle Man’s Message to America’s Lost Boys”. www.thefp.com. Retrieved 2026-01-02.
  2. ^ Knibbs, Kate (2022-06-20). “Finally, a Novel That Gets the Internet Right”. Wired. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  3. ^ Escobar, Natalie; Mazariegos, Miranda (2022-06-30). “8 best books to enjoy at the beach this summer”. 2023-01-06. NPR. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  4. ^ “Opinion | From skinny to baggy jeans, how culture mysteriously shifts”. Washington Post. 2025-03-03. Archived from the original on 2025-03-03. Retrieved 2026-05-28.
  5. ^ “Briefly Noted”. New Yorker. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  6. ^ Yorker, The New (2025-01-22). “The Best Books of 2025”. The New Yorker. Retrieved 2026-05-28.
  7. ^ Gogarty, Josiah (2024-12-18). “The best books of 2025”. British GQ. Retrieved 2026-05-28.
  8. ^ Lewandowski, Taylor (2022-07-22). “Just One More Click”. Bookforum. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  9. ^ Roberts, Richard Owain (2022-09-14). “Jordan Castro in Conversation with Richard Owain Roberts”. Wales Art Review. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  10. ^ “The Novelist by Jordan Castro”. Publishers Weekly. 2022-03-16. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
  11. ^ “Muscle Man by Jordan Castro”. Penguin Randomhouse. 2025-04-10. Retrieved 2025-04-10.