Review:
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2012: Though this slender paperback has the look and feel of an overstuffed (if menacing) greeting card, there’s nothing slight about the emotional muddle navigated by sulky, “recently disgraced” Marcus in the wake of his calamitous, ill-timed affair. Estranged from his wife and their newborn child, Marcus makes a desperate, half-thought-out visit to a childhood friend who’s had fluky success in tech and lives in an enormous but mostly empty house in a North Carolina suburb. Panio Gianopoulos’s subtly suspenseful debut elegantly explores the sorrowful angst of a certain species of modern man, the kind who doesn’t quite know what it means to be a man. (Gianopoulos's wife, the actor Molly Ringwald, explored some similar themes in her recent collection, When It Happens to You). "You’re a shadow of a man," a woman snarls at Marcus after they meet at a bar and she hears his story. Marcus knows she's right. "Had he learned anything?" he asks himself, searching for some measure of relief. --Neal Thompson
From the Back Cover:
"A Familiar Beast is superb. With elegant prose, unforgettable scenes and Philip Roth-like psychological insights, Panio Gianopoulos's debut novella marks the arrival of a bright and gifted writer." --Jim Lynch, author of Truth Like the Sun
"A Familiar Beast is a swan song to love and lovers, and with its devastating wit and tender bitterness it kills the easy, common hope for meaning, significance, and, ultimately, redemption." --Stefan Kiesbye, author of Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone
"Elegant, erudite and witty, this extremely well-observed and surprisingly suspenseful story offers more insights into love and human relationships than most authors manage in works three times as long." --Adam Langer, author of author of Crossing California
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