Good Men

Brilliant absurdist chronicle of a hapless outsider’s struggle to do the right thing.

Arnon Grunberg’s fourteenth novel charts the downfall of Geniek Janowski, a Polish-German firefighter doing his best to be a good father, husband, lover and colleague, only to fail on all fronts.

Geniek leads a seemingly unremarkable life with his wife, Wen, and their son, Jurek, in the sleepy Dutch province of Limburg, where everyone simply calls him “The Pole” because they can’t pronounce his real name. He is the only foreigner and the only vegetarian at the fire station, yet to him the crew feels like a band of brothers.

When he discovers that the wife of his colleague, Beckers, is dying, The Pole is reminded of the role she played in his own life following the death of his eldest son, Borys—namely, by providing consolation in the form of unorthodox sexual acts. Racked by guilt, The Pole confessed the affair to his wife, and the retreated to a monastery for a year, where he ended up living in the henhouse. On his return, he is allowed to rejoin the fire brigade, though everyone in town has their doubts.

Grunberg has lost none of his edge in this acutely absurdist account of the powerlessness of human beings to alter their fate. Comfort, salvation, love, and solidarity seem out of reach. In the world of Good Men, illusions about humanity and, above all, brotherhood will never prevail.