Good Guys - by Sharon Bala (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Boat People comes a page-turning moral drama about money, the dark side of philanthropy, and what happens when you try to change the world for all the wrong reasons.

They have the best of intentions. What could go wrong?

Claire Talbot is the publicist at Children of the World, an international aid charity. Morally burnt out after decades working in reputation management, Claire is relieved to finally use her PR skills for good. Too bad the organization is on the verge of bankruptcy. In a last-ditch effort to keep them afloat, Claire arranges for an A-list actress to volunteer at one of their overseas orphanages. When the actress decides to adopt a baby and promises a massive donation, it seems as if Claire has single-handedly saved the day. But after a journalist digs into their operations and reveals a shocking crime, Claire and her colleagues must reckon with their complicity and all the ways their work abroad has harmed the very people they set out to save.

Moving between Children of the World's headquarters in Toronto and their compound in Central America, Good Guys charts the charity's rise and fall. Scathing yet compassionate, the novel is a thought-provoking exploration of power, philanthropy, and the lengths we go to for redemption. Emotionally engrossing, tightly paced, and sharply observed, it ultimately asks: Is it possible to do good in an imperfect world?

Review Quotes

"In Good Guys, Sharon Bala takes on the world of charity with kaleidoscopic elegance, turning the crystalline glass of her prose again and again to show us a system both gorgeous and fractured. Bala writes heartbreakingly about those seeking help however they can and the shifting motivations of those attempting to provide it. If you care about others, you will love these pages and what they ask of you: to think about what goodness is, what shape it takes, how it aligns with power, and to whom it belongs. This book is relentlessly original, and also an old-fashioned page turner that will have your heart in your throat."
--V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night

"Good Guys is astounding. The satire is so nuanced and artfully done that one can't help but feel empathy in spite of oneself. I was riveted by the story, by the characters, even as I despised some of them. This thoughtful, emotionally compelling novel is necessary in a world of binary thinking and performative gestures."
--Jenny Heijun Wills, author of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.

"Bala's blackly comic tale rotates through a kaleidoscopic cast of narrators, each of whom believes themselves to be the hero in their own story. With a satirical eye that never tips into cynicism, Bala delivers a quietly profound, thriller-adjacent dissection of global inequality that bruises even as it entertains."
--Publishers Weekly

"I couldn't put this novel down. I ended up bingeing it in two days. You know that kind of book? It's full of office politics that have terrible consequences. Many of the characters are flawed in the most delicious ways. It's a satire, a send up, about a charity falling from grace--what happens when good intentions go bad."
--Claire Cameron, author of How to Survive a Bear Attack

"Good Guys is an unputdownable thriller about the dark side of philanthropy."
--SheDoesTheCity.com

About the Author

SHARON BALA's bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and the 2020 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2018, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and was longlisted for the 2019 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award. In 2017, Sharon won the Writers' Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story "Butter Tea at Starbucks." She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, where she is currently the Creative Non-Fiction Editor at Riddle Fence.