He Hired Mamdani to Run His Campaign. Now Ross Barkan Is Writing His Book

DESCRIPTIONRoss Barkan covered New York City politics for years before running for office himself. He lost. His campaign manager was a little-known political operative named Zohran Mamdani. That man is now the mayor of New York City.Barkan is one of the sharpest journalists covering the Mamdani administration — and he reveals in this conversation that he is writing the definitive book on Mamdani's election and early months in office, due out in October from Random House.He is also the author of Colossus, a new novel out April 28th about a MAGA pastor in rural Michigan who built a perfect life on a lie. He calls it a novel for the Trump age.We talk about Mamdani's first hundred days, the Albany budget fight, why Barkan thinks the Jessica Tisch alliance was a mistake, what it's like to interview the man you once employed, and why he believes fiction is the last line of defense against a world that wants to outsource thinking to machines.SHOW NOTESRoss Barkan's BooksColossusGlass CenturyThe Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New YorkBooks Ross Is ReadingUs v. Them: The Age of Indie Music and a Decade in New York, by Ronen GivonyThe Ritz of the Bayou, by Nancy LemannMeet Me in the Bathroom, by Lizzy GoodmanRoss Barkan OnlinePolitical CurrentsThe Metropolitan Review