Haven – Ani Katz

The old Pakistani guy working there screamed like a woman when he saw me. He said he thought I was a ghost.” Blaise had told his story in a rush, as if he couldn’t get it out of his body fast enough, his words flowing too quickly and thickly for anyone to interrupt. When he finished there was a shocked silence, a moment of suspended horror. Then Wynn snorted. The others looked at him.

Wynn tried to compose himself. “I’m sorry,” he said to Blaise. He pressed his knuckles to his lips, tried and failed to hold in another laugh. “Just, the image of you out there. And the guy at the bodega screaming like that.” Wynn snorted again, brushed his hair out of the watery slits of his laughing eyes. Blaise stared at him, tremulous, blinking hard.

“It’s not funny.” His voice broke. Grimacing, he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm and sniffed. The others were still silent, still horrified. “People always do this,” Blaise choked out. “They always laugh when I tell the story, because they think I’m just some fucking himbo, that everything I do is a fucking joke. But it’s not a joke.

It’s not funny. I could have died.” He sobbed suddenly into his hands, and the sob released the rest of them from their suspended state. Taryn joined Blaise on the couch and held him. The other women made sympathetic sounds. Wynn brushed his hair out of his eyes again, stood up and sat down again, looking stricken. Perry got up and went into the house. “It’s not funny,” Blaise repeated, snuffling into Taryn’s breasts. “You’re right, baby,” she soothed, rubbing his back. “It’s not.” Perry returned, brandishing the brown glass medicine dropper.

The others unhinged their jaws like baby birds, waiting their turn as Perry came around and dispensed a dose of Q into each gaping mouth. Then he was standing over Caroline, grinning, dangling the dropper above her head, but before she could accept or refuse, he snatched it away. “Sorry,” he said lightly. “I forgot. None for Mama.” “But—” They all looked at her. The argument had been her fault to begin with. But if she took the Q, maybe they would see that she meant well, that she truly wanted to be part of the group.

That she was one of them. “Just a tiny bit,” she said. She could tell it was the right decision when the others exchanged smiles. Lips parted, eyes closed, Caroline didn’t even feel the drop dissolve on her tongue. Though it seemed impossible that the Q could take its effect so quickly, a sense of calm descended.

“Haven not only draws a timeless portrait of early motherhood, it unflinchingly examines how much of our humanity we’re willing to sacrifice for comfort. Absorbing and uncanny.” —Tracy Sierra, author of Nightwatching “Hands down the trippiest book I’ve read all year, Ani Katz’s Haven marries the feverish anxiety of new motherhood with a level of techno-paranoia worthy of Black Mirror.

Plotted on shifting sands, and with a cast of inscrutable locals, mystical card games, a teenage coven, and a missing baby, Haven operates as both a futuristic fable as well as a truly unhinged thriller.” —Ellie Eaton, author of The Divines Praise for A Good Man “[An] ingenious slow burn.” —Entertainment Weekly “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 the thin line between happiness and disaster.”

—BookPage “A mature and wicked debut…Evokes Highsmith’s Ripley, or Denise Mina’s The Long Drop, and heralds the entry of a fantastic new voice to the genre.” —CrimeReads “Simultaneously nightmarish and utterly compelling…A masterful, suspenseful tale told by an ultimate unreliable narrator.” —Booklist (starred review) “Sordidly gripping.” —The Guardian “A Good Man’s exploration of masculinity in a world of instability makes it a timely read.” —Vanity Fair “Highly impressive…A striking modern tale of violence, sexual abuse, and vindictiveness.” —The Independent “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.”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 30bca8b1f521f6a1
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,497,613 bytes (2.382 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780143138679, 9780593512814
• Pages: 245
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 352.64 minutes
• Total Words: 70,528
• Total Characters: 399,848
• Average Words per Page: 287.87
• Average Characters per Page: 1632.03

Most Frequent Words

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