Publishers Weekly
★ 11/25/2019
“The billy club arrived with the first shipment of Christmas presents that year,” says Thomas Martin at the start of Katz’s powerful and unsettling debut. Thomas seems to have had it all—a loving wife and daughter, an upscale Long Island home, and a successful career in advertising—but he has sacrificed everything in a sudden, violent act of desperation. Thomas proceeds to tell his story in an effort to explain and perhaps find absolution. But the account of family life he provides, though enviable on the surface, contains disturbing revelations—his failure to protect his sister from sexual abuse, the ambiguous role he had in his father’s death, his attitude toward the billy club—produces in the reader a sense of foreboding that builds with ever-increasing intensity to the inevitable and brutal climax. Throughout, Thomas insists on believing himself to be a good man, “if deeply flawed.” Katz is in full control of mood and pacing. This masterly first novel is sure to attract an audience from outside the mystery/thriller genre. Agent: Julia Kenny, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Powerful and unsettling...Produces in the reader a sense of foreboding that builds with ever-increasing intensity to the inevitable and brutal climax...[A] masterly first novel."
—Publishers Weekly *starred review*
“As she expertly builds a growing sense of dread, Katz creates an unsettling atmosphere of paranoia, fear, and rage, hinting at the catastrophe to come through ominous comparisons to the tragic operas Thomas loves. This is the sort of relentless novel you can't put down even when you're afraid to read what happens next. An unnerving and absorbing exploration of modern masculinity and how the seeds of violence are sown.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Chillingly good...Katz has delivered a whip-smart, beautifully written meditation on marriage, masculinity and hte thin line between happiness and disaster."
—Bookpage
“Ani Katz is a brilliant writer. I sat down to read A Good Man and didn’t move until I’d finished it. This is a spellbinding work of psychologically potent art. I can’t wait to read what she does next. I loved this book.”
—Caroline Kepnes, author of You
“Katz draws a life in its most delicate lines, then destroys it. And this is a story you won't forget.”
—Nico Walker, New York Times bestselling author of Cherry
“A Good Man slinks into the dark heart of a ripped-from-the-headlines crime fueled by toxic masculinity. As in Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny, the slow unpeeling— layer by layer— of the conventions of sanity left me breathless, saddened, and spooked.”
—Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and June
“A profoundly disturbing and deeply unsettling story of a man struggling to reconcile himself with the horrifying act he has committed. Katz deftly embodies her narrator, giving voice to his self-serving recreation of the past and presenting him as he sees himself: a provider, a protector, a patriarch. Richly drawn and laced through with dread, this bold novel is an unflinching examination of what it means to be a man, and how easily a man can become a monster.”
—Kathleen Barber, author of Are You Sleeping
"Surprising, daring, and thrilling to read."
—Flynn Berry, author of Under the Harrow and A Double Life
"Gripping, sly, and ferociously intelligent. I couldn't put it down."
—Jennifer duBois, author of Cartwheel and The Spectators
“A Good Man will hold you in its creeping spell from the first lyrical line to the bitter, bitter end. As the narrator’s tale of selfless, industrious striving on his family’s behalf unravels, you’ll be too caught up to look away from the ugly business of a ‘good man’ bringing himself and the others around him down. Ani Katz’s debut is a gorgeously written, profound examination of contemporary masculinity and its potentially lethal side effects.”
—Laura Sims, author of Looker
Kirkus Reviews
2019-09-30
A successful Manhattan adman believes his family comes first—but commits an unthinkable act against them.
The world in which the events of Katz's disturbing debut novel unfold is a dangerous place. Mass graves are discovered in Damascus. College students set themselves on fire to protest against their deportations. There are school massacres, hunger strikes, police shootings, a paramilitary presence on the streets. Against this unsettling backdrop of violence and disaster—which doesn't feel that far removed from American life in 2019—Thomas Martin unspools his dark confession. Thomas is an adman in Manhattan. He spins stories for a living, making "things like death seem clean and manageable—attractive, even." Thomas' troubled childhood has provided him with a unique view of emotional disaster and prepared him well for his career. His abusive father was a drunk, his mother a cowering, terrified wreck. His older sister committed suicide, and his younger sisters exist in an extended adolescence, wandering aimlessly through the wreck of the family house on Long Island. But Thomas has built a better life for himself. He fell in love, got married, had a daughter. He's working on an important account. He's transformed. He is, he tells us, a good man, one who takes care of his family. But Thomas is not a reliable narrator, and his account slowly unravels as Katz reveals his inner turmoil. And if he's such a good man, why did he buy that threatening billy club online for "psychological protection"? As she expertly builds a growing sense of dread, Katz creates an unsettling atmosphere of paranoia, fear, and rage, hinting at the catastrophe to come through ominous comparisons to the tragic operas Thomas loves. This is the sort of relentless novel you can't put down even when you're afraid to read what happens next.
An unnerving and absorbing exploration of modern masculinity and how the seeds of violence are sown.
