-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Paperback Original
Faith, family, and the weight of history intersect in this remarkable debut from a rising literary talent.
A cold, gray Sunday dawns on New York City to find Paul Metzger trudging through the winter streets to visit his past. He goes first to see his estranged, decades-older half-brother; then his dying father, whose notorious early life still haunts his children; and finally the ex-wife he cannot help but continue to love. But a fourth encounter—violent, unexpected—sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change Paul's life, as well as the family he's struggled so long to understand.
Ian MacKenzie's stirring and lyrical debut is a story of a family inalterably fractured by its past, of a man who refuses to believe that what is done cannot be undone, and of a world that insists—catastrophically, in the end—otherwise.
"Starred Review. A novel as grim as it is extraordinary ... his visceral narrative, powered by taut prose and braced with sturdy philosophical and psychological underpinnings, is a winner." - Publishers Weekly
"Nothing about Ian MacKenzie's City of Strangers tips the reader that this complex and riveting work is a first novel by an author not yet 30 .... MacKenzie handles the questions of obligation and responsibility among his characters with great skill, which elevates this novel to an impressive literary level." - Stan Hynds, Publishers Weekly Galley Talk
This information about City of Strangers was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ian MacKenzie graduated from Harvard in 2004. City of Strangers is his first novel.
If you liked City of Strangers, try these:
by Annalee Newitz
Published 2026
A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz.
by C Pam Zhang
Published 2024
The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world
by Lindsey Drager
Published 2024
At once an ode to birds, an elegy to space, and a journey into the most haunted and uncanny corners of the human mind, The Avian Hourglass showcases Lindsey Drager's signature brilliance in a stunning, surrealist novel for fans of Jesse Ball, Helen Oyeyemi, Yoko Ogawa, and Shirley Jackson.
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
