City of Clans

Geoff Peck
City of Clans
(University of Iowa Press, September 2025)

 

Read an excerpt of the novel in the Pittsburgh Review of Books

 
Set on the eve of the 2009 G20 Summit protests, City of Clans follows Jeremy Starcevic, a community college student struggling with his identity and sexuality.

By day, Jeremy works for a party goods distributor in the heart of the city and attends classes. By night, he drinks to excess and self-sabotages at the urging of friends. As the son of a professional baseball player, Jeremy grew up playing sports and molding himself into a certain type of guy—a type embodied in Jeremy’s best friend and roommate, the hypermasculine Scott Melloy. But when Scott commits an unthinkable act, Jeremy is forced to acknowledge that the friend he idolized is a sexual predator, and his carefully constructed sense of self crumbles.Jeremy begins a journey of healing and self-reflection that carries him back to his family and his one true friend, Katrina Kovacs, a photography major who opens his eyes to societal issues he’s always ignored. A story of redemption, City of Clans captures the resiliency of the human spirit and explores hidden truths of masculinity, sexuality, and self.

Praise for City of Clans

“Even though it is set in the Pittsburgh of 2009, City of Clans is necessary and timely, fiercely rebutting the voices clamoring for a super-charged restoration of masculine values.” — The Pittsburgh Review of Books

“Brutal but spiked with hope, City of Clans is the antidote to toxic masculinity we’ve been waiting for. It’s a lively, if chilling novel that takes shades from The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and A Little Life and applies them to the Pennsylvania steel mills, warehouses, and college bars of the early Obama era. Peck’s characters—the eager-to-evolve Big Jerm, the insecure alpha male Scotty Ballgame, and the resilient Kat—are fully alive in these pages that take a sledgehammer to the violent sexual politics of a fortunately bygone era. Most surprising is Peck’s intent. Peck returns us to this dark historical moment not merely to revel in the pain but to ask the all-too-essential question: How do we move on from trauma and heal?” —Salvatore Pane, author of The Neorealist in Winter

“I’ve never read a novel that so ruthlessly examines traditional American masculinity—and from the perspective of a character both trapped in and perpetuating its continued harm. With boldness and nuance, Peck builds a tense, urgent story that peers beneath the surface of his characters’ worst impulses—then goes deeper still, to the antiquated social structures they work to maintain and the tender vulnerability they’ll do anything to avoid. I experienced every feeling possible while tearing through this brilliant debut: anger, bewilderment, sadness, heartbreak—and ultimately, hope.” —Ashleigh Bell Pedersen, author of The Crocodile Bride

The Pittsburgh Review of Books examines City of Clans

 

Geoff Peck is a writer, editor, podcaster, and an English Professor at Grand Rapids Community College. His debut novel is City of Clans and his short fiction and poetry have appeared in over twenty publications. He was nominated for Best New American Poets after winning the Thomas McGrath Award from The Academy of American Poets. He received his PhD in English & Creative Writing from the University of North Dakota and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. He has been an editor with several literary journals in the past and is currently Associate Prose Editor for The Meadow.