Gallo
Available 3.16.27
Veteran professional bodybuilder Tom Gallo still believes he can win it all. But his family disagrees. Yes: his wife, Lisa, and his sister, Debbie, have seen enough of his "art," and everyone is eager for the oft-injured, forty-something hustler to retire from the stage for good. But when a younger pro dies, Gallo gets the call to take his spot in the contest that will finally change his life—just not in the way he was hoping.
Gallo is an ode to the great literary portraits, in the tradition of Stoner and The Death of Ivan Illych. Set in the suburban desert of Phoenix, Arizona, this distinctly American novel—both heartbreaking and absurd—is about ambition, addiction, faith, family, and mortality, and it marks the latest achievement by an extraordinary new talent.
Available for preorder, Gallo will be published by Scribner on March 16th, 2027.
Praise for Gallo
"Haunts like poetry. By page two, I teared up... Gallo's unputdownable and unforgettable.... There's a spiritual thread through the whole thing like a tractor beam. A stellar follow up after a bravura debut novel about a dang gun shop in Arizona. Keep 'em coming, Sammartino. We need you, bruv."—Mary Karr, author of The Liars Club, Cherry, and Lit
"Hilarious and heartbreaking and morbidly American. A completely addictive portrait of addiction, when a private idée fixe becomes the architecture of an entire life. Each rep pulled me in deeper. I'll read anything by Sammartino."—Madeline Cash, author of Lost Lambs
"Gallo is brutal, tender, hilarious, full of poetic fire, and poses philosophical questions in the way only great fiction can. Alexander Sammartino might be the eleventh best writer in America already, and he's only getting started."—Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and No One Left to Come Looking For You