Skip to main content

Brian Castleberry

Biography

Brian Castleberry

Brian Castleberry’s first novel, NINE SHINY OBJECTS, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection and was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His other work has been published in the Southern Review, Narrative, LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere.

Brian Castleberry

Books by Brian Castleberry

The Californians
by Brian Castleberry - Fiction

It’s 2024, and Tobey Harlan steals from the wall of his father’s house three paintings by the venerated and controversial artist Di Stiegl. Tobey has just lost everything he owns to a Northern California wildfire, and if he can sell the paintings (albeit in a shady way to a notorious tech bro), he can start life anew in a place no one will ever find him. A hundred years before, German-Jewish immigrant Klaus Aaronsohn inveigles his way into a film studio in Astoria, Queens. He will restyle himself Klaus von Stiegl, a mysterious aristocratic German film director, and end his career directing “Brackett,” a radical, notorious ’60s-era detective show. Weaving between Tobey and Klaus is the story of Diane “Di” Stiegl, Klaus’ granddaughter, raised in Palm Springs, who claws out a career as an artist in gritty 1980s NYC.