The Good Guy

  • Author Susan Beale
  • Narrator Caitlin Shannon, Craig Van Ness
  • Publisher John Murray Press
  • Run Time 10 hours and 8 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Modern and contemporary fiction.
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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

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