The Good Guy

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What to expect

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2016

A deeply compelling novel set in 1960s suburban America for fans of The Engagements and Tigers in Red Weather.

Ted, a car-tyre salesman in 1960s suburban New England, is a dreamer who craves admiration. His wife, Abigail, longs for a life of the mind. Single-girl Penny just wants to be loved. When a chance encounter brings Ted and Penny together, he becomes enamoured and begins inventing a whole new life with her at its centre. But when this fantasy collides with reality, the fallout threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear.

The Good Guy is a deeply compelling debut about love, marriage and what happens when good intentions and self-deception are taken to extremes.

(P)2017 John Murray Press

Critics Review

A joy
Samantha Harvey, author of The Wilderness
Inspired by the author's own experience, The Good Guy is a story of marriage, self-deception and the pressure to conform in Sixties suburban New England
i
A delicious, slightly gossipy summer read with a Mad Men feel to it. I'd especially recommend this to readers who enjoyed The Longest Night by Andria Williams and Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann
Bookbag
There's definitely a Mad Men vibe to The Good Guy
Red, Best Books to Read this June
Fresh and lively
Daily Mail
Beale has crafted an engaging and harrowing portrait of womanhood and domestic life, astutely exploring the many ways in which distance and proximity can co-exist
Times Literary Supplement
Extremely well-written, intelligent and perceptive, this also happens to be a novel that slips down like ice-cream on a hot day. I absolutely loved it
Shiny New Books
What makes Beale's writing so poignant is her ability to paint her characters with such acute attention to detail
Dundee University Review of the Arts
The Good Guy is a very strong debut and a novel that kept me gripped to the very end. Beale is exceptional at creating believable characters that evoke genuine sympathy and scorn in equal measure
Book and Brew
The Good Guy is no honeyed exercise in nostalgia: it's an exploration of the deception and conformity at the heart of the American dream
Guardian Online
With echoes of Richard Yate's Revolutionary Road this is a tale of an outwardly idyllic marriage, that in private is unravelling horribly
Optima
A sparkling debut, with a lifelike depiction of a time and place, and piercing insights into the fabled, and often tarnished, American dream
Lady

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