A dazzling novel about the inextricable link between the personal and the political set against the decadence of Hollywood and postwar Los Angeles As a Hungarian immigrant working as a studio hack writing monster movies in 1950s Hollywood, George Curtis must navigate the McCarthy-era studio system filled with possible communists and spies, the life of closeted men along Sunset Boulevard, and the inability of the era to cleave love from persecution and guilt. But when Madeline, a famous actress, offers George a writing residency at her estate in Malibu to work on the political writing he cares most deeply about, his world is blown open. Soon Madeline is carrying George like an ornament into a class of postwar L.A. society ordinarily hidden from men like him. What this lifestyle hides behind, aside from the monsters on the screen, are the monsters dwelling closer to home: this bacchanalia covers a gnawing hole shelled wide by the horror of the war they thought they’d left behind and the glimpse of an atomic future. It’s here that George understands he can never escape his past as György, the queer Jew who fled Budapest before the war and landed in New York, all alone, a decade prior. Spanning from sun-drenched Los Angeles to the hidden corners of working-class New York to a virtuosic climax in the Las Vegas desert, The Future Was Color is an immaculately written exploration of postwar American decadence, reinventing the self through art, and the psychosis that lingers in a world that’s seen the bomb. them , A Best LGBTQ+ Book of the Year Los Angeles Times , A Must Read Book of the Month Esquire , A Best Book of the Summer Named a Most Anticipated Book by Los Angeles Daily News , Literary Hub , LGBTQ Reads , The Rumpus , & The Millions "A work of muscular poetic force, mysterious and arresting." —Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post " The Future Was Color probes evergreen postwar themes like McCarthyism and the specter of nuclear holocaust . . . Nathan’s style channels a kind of rapturous Fitzgeraldian opulence, where loneliness is romantic, disenchantment beautiful and the world exists in sensuous splendor." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “A riveting novel that explores basic existential questions ranging from 'what is life’s purpose?' to 'how can there be light and happiness in dark times?' History was ruptured in the 1950s; how could life go on after the revelation of World War II death camps and the creation of a bomb that could incinerate a city’s population with a single blast? These questions make The Future Was Color timely in 2024 America.” —Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times “Nathan employs the timeless ‘a stranger comes to town’ plot, as a gay Hungarian Jew named George Curtis gets invited to a chic Malibu house for a 1950s Hollywood heyday. However, George’s backstory in Manhattan and future in Paris bookend that bacchanalia and show how dark the shadow of McCarthyism and its ‘Lavender Scare’ loomed over queer society—as other paranoias of the day did over other people, reminding readers that things have not changed enough.” —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times "Everything I look for in a book: a unique and startling voice, a queer protagonist and a deep understanding of a particular time and place." —Ilana Masad, NPR "I'm getting choked up just thinking about the beauty and scope of this novel, all of which fit neatly into 209 pages . . . Nathan takes readers from Los Angeles (Hollywood) to New York to Las Vegas to Paris, all the while seamlessly incorporating significant historical events, as he tells the extraordinary story of protagonist George, a gay Hungarian immigrant." —Gregg Shapiro, Bay Area Reporter "Lovers of literary fiction will still want to take summer’s long, hot days to luxuriate in the novel’s prose and its steamy eroticism, not to mention its thoughtful and challenging contemplations on art, politics and, well, the entire human condition." —Samantha Dunn, Southern California News Group "Nathan’s L.A. noir novel spans decades and countries and delves into the power of art, self-reinvention, and the tether between the personal and the political." —Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Daily News "Your steamiest summer read arrives with The Future Was Color , a sexy historical novel set in McCarthy-era Hollywood and beyond . . . A moving portrait of queer lives that were otherwise silenced or interrupted by history." —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire "A book that explores decadence, but in the most thoughtful way, a compulsive page-turner with layers of subtext . . . Nathan captures the essence of humanity and personal trauma in an addictively entertaining nutshell." —Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein, Alta "If you enjoyed the Showtime series Fellow Travelers and are looking for more queer stories that blend the personal with the political, The Future Was Color should fit the bill nicely." —Cindy White, The A.V. Club "I have a little (rea