Fabulist

As the shining star of The New Republic (in the novel The Washington Weekly), Glass captivated readers with his sharp articles about the powerful, but everything fell apart when rival magazine Forbes became suspicious of his story about angry lottery winners. Instead of confessing, Glass sank deeper into lies, inventing new details and characters in a desperate attempt to save his career, mixing fact with fiction like a master of illusion.

27 fake articles were discovered, his career collapsed like a house of cards, and he became a symbol of journalistic arrogance and a crisis of confidence in the media. In self-imposed exile with his family in suburban Chicago, and later near Washington, he faced demonic questions: Why am I lying? How do I stop? Is my life, at 25, lost forever?

In this chaotic escape, he encounters a colorful galaxy of eccentrics—colleague clowns, sick animals, irritable masseuses, seductive librarians, bingo contestants, synchronized swimmers, a mentally disturbed stripper, and a mysterious purple-dressed angelica—as the languid world of journalism collapses on him. He rediscovers a forgotten Judaism, falls in love with a woman with her own dark secrets, and struggles for redemption through family ties, friendships, faith, and love, searching for a way out of a labyrinth of lies.

Like a light mea culpa, the novel bites at media ethics, exploring how to survive in a world where truth is as fragile as glass. Inspired by the author’s own real-life downfall, it becomes a metaphor for the American dream: a rapid rise, a spectacular fall, and the difficult search for a new beginning.