would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

and what a strange book it was....all about the life of a good man and his family told through his eyes and the way he saw his life....even those of his wife and daughter and his other family...

have to say though i read it and shook my head in disbelief i carried on reading it to see how it all pans out...the ending wasnt a real surprise...

an egotistical man who wanted to live life better

You will feel everything for this man. So genuinely portrayed that you cannot reject him even with the last terrible twist of the story. A study in compassion at it's very best.

After reading the synopsis of this book, I thought it would be right up my street, the type of story that I enjoy. However, and I hate to say this I struggled with some of it.

Thomas Martin, is the narrator of his own story, the whole book is narrated by the character, but how reliable is this character, he claims to be a good husband, father, employee, brother, son. But is he actually any of these. He admits he tells stories for a living, he is in advertising so knows how to spin a yarn to suit himself. So how much of the narration of events can the reader believe. Initially you are reading of his love of Opera, I found some of this to go into too much detail, practically telling the whole story of Wagner’s opera Taanhauser, but there may be some significance with that and the story, for atmosphere.

I liked the way his families dilapidated home was described, as well as the twin sisters and their eccentricities, his fragile ailing mother, and how he helped to keep them, being the good son and brother that he is. How he met his wife Miriam, love at first sight. But was it? The sex at times quite violent, was she as into that as he thought? Or states? Their daughter. He calls them his girls, in itself it’s quite a controlling phrase, they belong to him and no one else.

My biggest problem is that I didn’t like or care for any of the characters, that caused a big problem, I should have been rooting for his wife or daughter, but I felt nothing for them. There were no twists or turns at the end. You knew from page one something was going to happen, but no idea what. I was compelled to finish the book because I had to know what happened.

The writing is good, I just didn’t engage with the story, or the characters, and I really wanted to.

I would like to thank #netgalley and #WilliamHeinemann for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

“That’s what I did for a living. I spun stories, made things like death seem clean and manageable - attractive, even.”

A GOOD MAN by Ani Katz is a haunting and disturbing novel. From the beginning of the story, narrated by Thomas Martin, the titular ‘Good Man’, it is clear that something tragic has occurred, horrific enough to warrant examination in the media. Thomas tells the story of his family, trying to make sense of the events.

Despite having grown up in a damaged, perhaps toxic, household, Thomas is a successful advertising executive with a beautiful French wife and exceptionally bright daughter who adore him; at least that is how he tells it. Thomas is a convincing and engaging storyteller but there are moments when we question his reliability. He lets slip that Miriam, his wife, whose trust-fund bought the beautiful home that Thomas selected for them, was not, initially at least, as enthusiastic about leaving the city of New York as he was. Thomas loves the good things in life - opera, food and fine wine - but his occasional comments about ‘a haphazardly constructed cheese plate’ and the eating habits of others seem a little off. He frequently returns to Richard Wagner’s Tannhaüser, and its self-destructive hero with whom he appears to identify almost obsessively. In returning to parts of his tale he sometimes adds additional detail which changes our understanding.

A GOOD MAN is one of those books about which it is difficult to say much without spoiler, suffice to say that I was drawn in and held enthralled until the truth was revealed. Ani Katz is a talented writer and I read A GOOD MAN with the creeping uneasiness with which I read Shirley Jackson. It really is that good.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this ARC.

I really, really found this book to be a hard and difficult one to read. I didn’t take to or particularly like the main character, found the opera references irritating and felt they didn’t add anything to the story.
The story was told by Thomas and I thought the narrative was quite dark, almost gloomy and this didn’t make it a good read. Just not for me.

This title of this novel should probably come with a question mark! The man in question is Tom Martin an advertising executive married to a vivacious French wife called Miriam and with a lovely child, Ava. They have every prospect of a good life together but Tom is bedevilled by his past where he was brought up by an abusive, violent and drunken father. He also has to cope with a dysfunctional mother and two damaged teenage twins - his sisters. As the story develops, the dark side of his inheritance comes increasingly to haunt him and leads the book to its violent climax.

So, that gives us a simple reading of what is going on. Seriously damaged man tries hard to do what is right supporting his mother and the teenagers, making a dream home with his lovely wife and caring for his sweet daughter. Trying to do what is best for everyone leads him into some kind of breakdown because his upbringing hasn't really taught him what best for everyone means and therefore, eventually, he cracks. He's a good man because he tries to be good even though he fails!

However, it's a bit more than that. Tom is recounting the story and his narrative has some gaps in it and some clues. Reading between the lines, he is a car crash waiting to happen. He is emotionally incompetent but he thinks he knows what is right for people and doesn’t give them space to disagree. He drinks too much and too easily resorts to rage when he doesn't get his own way. He has good intentions but they may not be the best ones and his way of delivering them could certainly be improved!

And, then there's a bit more. This is a story about a man, a man who ought to be challenged by those around him from the start. It should be obvious that he is scarred but because he is a man he seems to get away with it as a representative of the patriarchy. Miriam is increasingly depressed but much of the reason is that she has moved to a new house where she is lonely and away from her friends. Her relationship with Tom is rough, sometimes violent, and you can't help feeling that if the roles were reversed she would have gone long before the end. Even at work, there are indications that Tom is an abusive and rather unpleasant boss while retailing the image of being highly efficient. It's that workplace façade collapsing which leads to his final crisis.

We end up with a good man, good in the sense of being a representative of gutsy masculinity, of holding things together, of knowing what is best, and of supporting his families, while a closer reading reveals that he is hopelessly messed up, emotionally frozen, pathologically half crazy and a danger to society.

That tension makes this a really excellent book that people will want to argue over. It's a rollercoaster ride well described by Ani Katz. The peripheral indications of a violent world and the bare descriptions of places keep the narrative moving at speed. The ending is shocking but, somehow, we've known that's where we're heading for many pages and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop it. It's a great read to start 2020.

Very dark, very clever premise with a sinister and overbearing tone that I sometimes struggled with, some arts were written in a way I didn't fully follow what was happening or said so it felt sluggish to get through in parts. Not quite for me

It is very refreshing to read a book in this genre from a male perspective. It deals very much with the preface of representation and reality in that what you see on the outside is not what is actually going on on the inside.
An easy book to read with a surprising and unexpected ending which leaves you wondering at the end.

Thomas Martin thinks he's a good man. Good husband, good father, good employee, good provider, good family-man. He provides reasons for all of these things by telling his story and, on the face of things comes across as very credible. His self-description has him winning man of the year hands down. But as his layers start to peel back, as more of THE truth rather than HIS truth becomes evident, we start to see a vary different picture as he starts to unravel...
This is an extremely character driven novel with a stellar cast of eclectic characters. From Thomas's ailing, aged mother, to his really rather weird sisters, to his wife and child. And then we factor in his long deceased sister and the impact her death had on all concerned. Told from his perspective, we start to build up a picture of the real Thomas. There's things that start to conflict. It's hard to explain without spoiling things but, by the end of the book, when reflected on in hindsight, certain things pop out which make the ending of the novel fit perfectly with what has gone before.
To say that I connected with Thomas from the off would be a bit weird, especially given what happens. But I kind of connected with his version of himself and that gave what happened a bit more impact as the mask came down and his brutal truth was revealed. It's like a wall was being built throughout Thomas's life and then, suddenly, it all came crashing down. It's hard to explain much more for fear of spoilers so I'll just say that, if you love tense, character driven, slightly confusing along the way, psychological dramas, you might do well giving this a crack. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I was looking forward to reading this book but, unfortunately, I was rather disappointed. Although the writing was very good I just didn't care for the characters and disliked the parts about the opera which I'm not a fan of.

He was 'A Good Man' until things went wrong at work! He came from a dysfunctional family but he had a good life with his wife and daughter.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced reading of this book. It was a good read but not a page turner for me. I found it a bit complicated and skipped the references to opera. Saying that I did finish the book, which was well written, but it wasn’t for me.

I’m afraid I struggled with A Good Man. It’s a bold idea and Ani Katz certainly writes well, but I got very bogged down in a slow, oppressive narrative.

The book is narrated in the first person by Thomas, a man with an apparently idyllic family life with his wife and daughter and a successful career. We can tell that something dreadful is looming, but it takes a very long time indeed for anything approaching an event to occur. Thomas’s narration is plainly unreliable – and very well done, to be fair – and through his eyes and interpretation we get a lot of history of his marriage and of his rather creepily dysfunctional mother and sisters as he becomes increasingly disturbed by things in his life. The trouble is that for me it just went on and on being oppressive and foreboding with little to really draw me in and, frankly, I found it a real struggle after a while. As a result, I’m not sure I really learned much about what Katz is really trying to tell us.

I applaud the book’s ambition, I think Ani Katz is a good writer and others have plainly derived far more from A Good Man than I did, but personally I couldn’t really get on with it.

(My thanks to Random House for an ARC via NetGalley.)

This book was just too much “dark” for me at the moment. It is Intriguing and quite interesting in style. I felt there may have been times when the prose was trying to be too clever and I had to reread sections to decipher what was being communicated. Perhaps it’s because during a busy time in my life I just need a simple read (which is not always the case with my reading) and so this review is all about the context. If you want something to ponder, this is the book for you. If you want a lazy, light-hearted read, avoid. One final thing- I did thing the end was clear from fairly early on and rather abrupt.

Thomas is a good man. He has a beautiful wife and daughter and is respected.He has a good job and is loved by all his family, looking after his mother and grown up sisters.
Then the unspeakable happens.
Thomas is not sure how to put it right. He wants to, He needs to because in the end he is A Good Man.

I enjoyed reading parts of this book although it was pretty shocking and depressing in places. I don't often read novels set in the USA so was glad that I was given the opportunity to read this ahead of publication. The characters and scenes did seem a bit dated and sometimes the minutia of details became tedious but nevertheless an interesting book.

Meet Thomas. Husband to his beloved wife Miriam, and doting father to his daughter Ava, his “girls”. He is a good man. He provides for his wife and daughter. He protects them. But he has done a bad thing, a horrific thing. And before he’ll tell you what he’s done, he wants to tell you his story. The story of his parents and rather dysfunctional family, how his father and sister died very close together, and how there’s always more going on behind closed doors. How he provides for his family, and feels the burden of failure but cannot admit to that weakness. And then there’s that horrific act. ‘A Good Man’ is written in a rather unique style; all prose and full of intellectual references showcasing Thomas’ intelligence and lifestyle. Thomas as protagonist is likeable, but his honesty and trustworthiness are called into question frequently throughout the book. His story draws you in; and when you learn of the horrific act - it’s all the more shocking and unsettling.

Hmm, not really sure about this book, the pros and cons seemed to be even, there was some brilliant writing and character engagement but it really went on in parts that were not very relevant to the story, a bit like Stephen King (sorry to all the Stephen King fans out there, but he does waffle on). Whilst I grateful to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book ,it was a struggle and I am not sure I would consider myself a fan, sorry.

I feel like there's a trend in books nowadays to make characters utterly unlikeable. The problem I have with that is you never have anyone to empathise with whilst reading which eventually leads to boredom which is what happened to me here.

I won't lie - I did struggle with this one.

A very dark tale but sadly I felt little for any of the character who I mainly felt were just plain odd! This lack of connection meant that I rarely cared about what was happening. However, there is no doubt that this book is well written and with a well woven story but unfortunately this one fell short for me but I have no doubt that others would enjoy it.