Ross Barkan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Ross Barkan is a published author.

He is the author of the novel Demolition Night as well as The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York. He is also the author of The Night Burns Bright and Glass Century.

Ross is an award-winning journalist as well as a former candidate for office. He also does work for the Guardian and Jacobin and is a contributing writer to the Nation. He has done quite a bit of journalistic work and his writing and essays have been featured in many different publications, such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, GQ, New York Magazine, the Village Voice, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

In 2017 and 2019, Ross was the recipient of the New York Press Club’s award for distinguished newspaper commentary. Currently he teaches students journalism at NYU and St. Joseph’s College. He is also the creator of the newsletter Political Currents, which focuses on New York and national affairs.

The Night Burns Bright is a novel by Ross Barkan. In this coming of age thriller, the spark of courage inside of a twelve year old boy to question the wooded commune that he calls home may end up burning down more than just his own illusions.

A young boy like Lucien has everything that he needs. He has a mama that loves him, a library of books, and House of Earth. House of Earth is a private school that is located in the woods of upstate New York.

It is the place where he is taught how important it is that they live in harmony with nature and how to build a peaceful and sustainable future. However, it is his youth that ends up drawing him out and creating a problem.

It’s Lucien’s curiosity that ends up attracting him to go into town and he is likewise drawn to Gabrielle, a young public school student who is living a life totally different from his own. Lucien’s inquisitiveness about life beyond the commune and questions regarding the events of 9/11 start to risk unbalancing everything that he thought that he knew about life.

Slowly things start changing bit by bit at the House of Earth. Things are tightening up and now they are saying that the outside world is off limits. All of their security measures get tighter and new rules are spelled out and put into place. Anyone who violates these rules is going to be asked to leave and then they will be forgotten and never spoken of again.

Lucien keeps seeing the rules stack up and it only inspires more questions. He keeps on meeting Gabrielle because he cannot say no to seeing her. But continuing to meet up only makes him more scared that something about the world that he lives in is just wrong.

When he can’t remain silent any longer, Lucien starts to discover that looking for his own personal answers at House of Earth might just be the one thing that he shouldn’t do. Will he find a resolution, and will he be okay? Read this book to find out!

Glass Century is a 2025 novel from Ross Barkan. The year is 1973, and the main character Mona Glass enters the room.

She is a young lady of 24 years old and is an amateur tennis star who has long been engaged in an affair with her former college professor, Saul Plotz. Her parents already like Saul and they would really like for their daughter to get married, especially as she is such a free spirit.

The only issue is that Saul is 34 years old and already is married. He has a wife and two children, so getting traditionally married is out of the question. But the pressure continues to build until Saul comes up with an idea one day.

He has the bright idea that they should get married, but just for show. They should stage a fake wedding and invite her old world parents to witness it along with a few friends who also know about what’s going on. That way they can be done with it and at last get on with their lives.

The fake wedding works and the ruse goes through; Mona’s parents are convinced that they have actually tied the knot. The only thing is that going through the process of this has made Saul come to realize that he actually really does want to marry Mona. Mona promises that she is never going to permanently tie herself to a man.

When she loses her city job in the 1970s fiscal crisis, Mona pivots and goes into a new line of work. She gets hired on as a freelance news photographer for a radical new tabloid. Then she beats out the competition to shoot a photo of a murderous vigilante that has been taking on the city, and she finds herself quickly falling for a colleague.

This is when Saul starts to worry that he’s lost her all together. He himself is a rising star in government who is going up against a then-unknown Donald Trump. But the affair does not die out all together and so it is years later that Mona realizes that she is pregnant with Saul’s child.

At the same time, Saul’s adult son Tad is making his way across America, traveling aimlessly and looking for answers as the nineties move on to 9/11 and more. Tad decides that it’s a good idea to take the darker path of the same vigilante that Mona once captured on film.

Mona and Saul work to raise their son Emmanuel, keeping the life that they have together a secret from Saul’s wife and children. Spanning from the seventies to the pandemic, this soaring novel is a tour de force of ambition and grace. It is a great American chronicle and a new story that you have to read for yourself to absorb so check out a copy of this book and see what you think!