Last week, I was excited to see The Critic, one of the great U.K. magazines, write on the treatment of 9/11 in my new novel, Glass Century. Stephen Adubato writes:
Echoing Baudrillard’s sentiments, Mona, the main character of the novel, couldn’t help but feel that the sight of the towers burning was “cinema, bad fiction, a plot point dreamt up as too ridiculous for art and discarded somewhere else.” The possibility that her loved ones working at the World Trade Center — who had symbolically “made it” to the summit of the American Dream — might be trapped in “the holy hell of it” seemed “beyond the realm of belief altogether.”
If you haven’t already, please buy Glass Century, which is available in all formats, including audiobook. And if you’ve enjoyed it, please rate and review on Goodreads.
Zohran Mamdani, a month away from turning thirty-four, is a near-lock to become the next mayor of New York City. He leads comfortably in every poll and the field has not consolidated against him. Donald Trump could not get Republican Curtis Sliwa or Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent, to drop out. Even if Adams left the race, his name would remain on the ballot, and he doesn’t have enough support anyway to significantly aid Mamdani’s only serious rival, Andrew Cuomo. Most polls show Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by about twenty points and there’s little to indicate the disgraced former governor, running as an independent after losing the primary, is gaining ground. His scandals are well-known and he’s a lousy campaigner. It’s plausible, come Election Day, his support could erode further, and Mamdani eats into his base of older voters who typically back Democrats.
I have a long-standing relationship with Mamdani, but I try to deliver my assessments of this mayoral race as straightforwardly as I can, given that I’ve been friends with the Democratic nominee for seven years. Even his detractors concede he is a unique political talent; his campaign in the primary was virtually flawless. From the outside, I’ve been less impressed by the general election effort, though that doesn’t mean he won’t win big. What I will state is that it is vital, politically, for Mamdani to win with more than 50 percent of the vote. If he does not, he will be shuffling, not sprinting, into City Hall.
No poll yet has shown Mamdani winning an outright majority. For all the talk of the anti-Mamdani forces splitting the vote, Cuomo is also siphoning Democratic support that might, in a vacuum, go to Mamdani. If I had to guess—and I don’t relish making hard predictions about elections—Mamdani will break 50 percent because the polls in the primary consistently underrated his support. I would not be shocked if Cuomo crumbled and Sliwa surpassed him. I would not be shocked if a surge in youth turnout and left-leaning independents, along with regular Democrats “coming home” to the nominee, buoys Mamdani tremendously, and he arrives in January with a real mandate.
But this is not guaranteed. I do not think Mamdani is yet campaigning like he is behind—that is crucial, in the home stretch, to run up the score against Cuomo. His campaign needs some of its pre-July aggression. There’s still time, of course, to find it.
In the meantime, there are several approaches the Mamdani campaign should take to ensure a comfortable victory in November.