City of Clans

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.

Pages: 288, Paperback, University of Iowa Press