MY COLD WAR
HarperCollins

"Already a master of the short story – Blues And Trouble is an underrated masterpiece – Tom Piazza has now written an equally brilliant novel. My Cold War is an extraordinary meditation on the ways we create history and history creates us. Full of humor and wisdom, driven by one man's yearning to make sense of his personal past in terms of America's past, this is an important book by one of our finest writers."

--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

From the paperback cover:

My Cold War is the story of John Delano – history professor, author, and brilliant fraud. At a small New England college he lectures on what others call “History McNuggets” – gimmicky glimpses of the “surfaces” of our collective past. But as he struggles to write a major book on the Cold War, his life begins to fall apart. Revisiting the streets of 1960s suburbia, the JFK assassination, the Summer of Love, and other iconic moments, Delano begins to confront the personal history that he has kept buried for years. A trip into the heartland to reconnect with his estranged brother changes everything for Delano and forms the powerful, surprising climax of this extraordinary first novel. 

--Ann Beattie

"My Cold War is a hefty slice of Americana: a sharp and clever debut novel that takes on both the Baby Boomers' history and their attitudes with a wry eye. Tom Piazza's lost and groping hero reminds me of Walker Percy's Binx Bolling, learning to swap the abstract for the real as he lets go of a saving glibness in order to come to grips with his painful past."

--Stewart O’Nan

"This novel is like a treasure hunt, which is to say it is very well-observed. For instance, the description of what it is like to smoke marijuana may be the best I've ever read on that little subject."

--Norman Mailer

FROM THE REVIEWS

“Piazza’s first novel is deceptively complex. On the surface it is all nostalgia and family episodes, but its construction is musical, with ‘movements’ that build on each other, allowing Piazza plenty of space to improvise variations on his theme. It becomes clear that Piazza is creating a genre that barely exists anymore: the American novel of ideas.”
-- San Francisco Chronicle

“Vivid and poignant…. Piazza [has] quietly disarming skills as a writer… Where other authors of ‘60s temper go for self-mythologizing broadsides, he courts ambivalence, complexity and disappointment – all moods, moreover, that he sharply distills into precise, period-inflected imagery.”
-- Washington Post

“There’s a painful, penetrating authenticity in Delano’s memories of growing up in a Long Island suburb during the Cold War and in his portraits of his relationships with his volatile, loner father and emotionally fragile brother….Piazza reveals the depths of his perceptiveness and talent.”
-- The New York Times Book Review

“Piazza’s novel is at least four different fabulous animals – the academic novel, the Catholic memoir, the journey into the Heart of Darkness and the Cheeveresque hallucination/revelation in which reality manifests itself as suburban illusion. And it is ultimately about History… Piazza writes subtly, with a deceptive simplicity that masks some of his weightier ideas. My Cold War is John Delano’s battle with himself.”
-- Newsday

“My Cold War is filled with small storytelling gems. Piazza depicts the Brave New World of Levittown-style suburbia with an edgy fondness. . . . Piazza’s debut novel gives us a writer with an uncanny ability to evoke emotions…. Pieces of My Cold War—or, more precisely, feelings the novel evokes—will circle back around and bite you long after you’ve finished reading.”
-- Denver Post

“A witty and intelligent dissection of the American psyche . . . Piazza’s ear and eye for the period are perfect . . . [his] atmospherics place the reader absolutely in the room, in the moment. In John Delano, Piazza has created a compelling and intricate, if not always likeable, character. . . .It is a tribute to Tom Piazza’s literary virtuosity that he takes his protagonist from such rage and confusion to such thoughtful wonder. Readers will be with him every step of the way.” 
-- New Orleans Times-Picayune“

Layers of delight are to be found in short-story writer Tom Piazza’s first novel. My Cold War is about the war between states of mind.”
-- USA Today

“Richly textured . . . Heartbreaking . . . An incisive portrait of a man, his troubled family and their place in history.”
-- Publishers Weekly

“Piazza has a clear gift for scene-setting and getting to the meat quickly . . . His words are so crisp and personal that in many places it’s easy to forget that this is fiction, not memoir.”
-- Boston Globe

“* * * *  (four stars) -- This one is special.”
-- Bookmarks Magazine

“Intelligent, sharply observed, often very funny.”
-- Kirkus Reviews

“Its impact is amazing…. [My Cold War] is a book that should make the author fans…. and once we get over the somewhat awe-inspiring knowledge that he and his character live inside our heads and hearts, should make us avid readers of what follows in his subsequent works.”
-- Berkshire Eagle