Editorial Review
Evoking the work of great American masters such as Ralph Ellison, but distinctly original, Michael Thomas’ first novel is a beautifully written, insightful, and devastating account of a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream. On the eve of the unnamed narrator’s thirty-fifth birthday, he finds himself broke, estranged from his white Boston Brahmin wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend’s six-year-old child. With only four days before he’s due in to pick up his family, he must make some sense out of his life. Alternating between his past—as an inner city child bused to the suburbs in the 1970’s—and a present where he is trying mightily to keep his children in private schools, we learn of his mother’s abuses, his father’s abandonment, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is an extraordinary debut about what it feels like to be pre-programmed to fail in life—and the urge to escape that sentence.
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Customer Reviews
read it twice, at least 
2008-10-06
This first novel beats anything written the same year. I couldn't put it down until I had read it twice. It's one of the most observant pieces in years. You look through the eyes of the narrator and see a world you can't see any other way. Go to a coffee shop, or go to work, or get drunk on a beach--and then read what happens along the way to the end. A sharply structured piece of work, it could teach other aspiring first novelists a few lessons in craftsmanship. MAN GONE DOWN should be on every budding writer's reading list.
Book Gone Down 
2008-09-02
I really hated this book. Yes, this guy is down on his luck, but he has so many good things going for him that he doesn't see. I got really tired of him shrugging, not answering questions directed at him., etc. I had to read it to the end just to see if anything happened, which nothing ever did. Awful.
TOUGH BUT REWARDING READ 
2008-08-23
Do you want to spend 400-plus pages with a self-obsessed, self-loathing and incredibly bitter unnamed narrator? It's a tough task but the raw, rambling, stream-of-conscious rant "Man Gone Down" rewards readers who stick it out to the end. Centered around a self-described "black Irish Indian" filled with a "black-iron locomotive" of rage, the story reads more like an extended journal entry or perhaps a bizarre revenge fantasy for real and perceived slights than a conventional novel with a narrative and plot. What set-up there is goes like this: an aspiring but professionally frustrated writer with a hyper-sensitivity to racism spends a few days wandering the streets of New York, trying to work up the courage to return home to his white wife and three kids. He spends most of his time reflecting on his past as a drug-addicted teenager, his present life with a woman whose love he suspects of being insincere, and an unclear future that could involve financial ruin. Writer Michael Thomas jumps back and forth in time with an approach that is best summed up by the narrator himself, who is also working on a novel of individual, seemingly standalone episodes. He writes, "Perhaps I had only disconnected thoughts and anecdotes flaring up in me like bouts of gastritis." Thus, a chapter might start with the narrator going out to dinner, but he never gets there because the story goes off on a tangent about his misadventures growing up in Boston. (From a technical point of view, "The Known World" and "Waterland" do this non-linear dance with more style.) After that, the last third of the novel turns into an unexpected page-turner with a more traditional storyline. And even though the overwhelmingly depressing "Man Gone Down" concludes with a pop-song-worthy imperative to return home to where your loved ones are, it's a happy ending that's earned.
Painful but Worth It 2008-06-12
I read this book very slowly, because sometimes it was just too painful. Michael Thomas takes you under the brown skin of a young man separated from his white wife and three children while trying to earn enough money for rent on an apartment and the private school tuition his wife expects. Its stream of conscious narration is very ambitious. Sometimes, he seems to channel Ellison's Invisible Man or Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land, but you know it's present-day by the cultural references. I particularly like a few scenes where he interacts with people who rank below him (he buys a beer for a woman strung out on drugs) and above him (there's a great golf outing to a Long Island club.) Each scene and his ruminations on jazz and being bused to a white suburban school build create a complex portrait of the character's interior life.
While his wife, a New England brahmin, knows of his past--his disturbed alcoholic mother is dead, his less-disturbed but passive alcoholic father still lives--she has a kind of blind faith in him that doesn't take much note of the complexities of race and class. The person who comes closest to sharing his experiences and point of view is his one black friend from high school, who is in and out of detox.
But the part of the story that brought me to tears were his memories of the births of his children and the telephone conversations he has with them while he struggles. There were times he almost convinced me that he would leave them, and I think if Thomas had written this book in the sixties, the character would. But he finds another way through his dilemma that has more to do with his growing maturity than with external circumstances, and I closed the book wondering how all the characters survived the winter.
Down For The Count 2008-06-07
DOWN FOR THE COUNT
I don't walk out on plays/performances even when those around me are fleeing as though they are being pursued by three-eyed slimy monsters from outer space.
I will generally slog through the most the most dismal of books because I respect and admire the talent, time and effort it takes to write a book.
I am a good audience.
However I am down for the count when it comes to Michael Thomas's "Man Gone Down."
What Dorothy Parker said of Los Angeles, "there isn't any there there" pretty well sums up my feelings for "Man Gone Down."
"There isn't any book there."
Story?
Not more than a few fleeting fragments.
I gave up the fight mid-book.
Yes it is one of the top ten books of 2007!! 2008-03-27
Evoking the work of great American masters such as Ralph Ellison, but distinctly original, Michael Thomas’ first novel is a beautifully written, insightful, and devastating account of a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream. On the eve of the unnamed narrator’s thirty-fifth birthday, he finds himself broke, estranged from his white Boston Brahmin wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend’s six-year-old child. With only four days before he’s due in to pick up his family, he must make some sense out of his life. Alternating between his past—as an inner city child bused to the suburbs in the 1970’s—and a present where he is trying mightily to keep his children in private schools, we learn of his mother’s abuses, his father’s abandonment, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is an extraordinary debut about what it feels like to be pre-programmed to fail in life—and the urge to escape that sentence.
Truth in Labeling 
2008-03-20
Do you remember Clicquot Club Soda? Remember that iconic label? It was hard to get passed that smiling Eskimo boy in a white fur parka carrying a bottle of Clicquot Club Soda with a label showing that same Eskimo boy carrying a bottle of Clicquot Club with a label showing the same Eskimo boy carrying a bottle, carrying a bottle, on and on, smaller and smaller. Well, Man Gone Down is a lot like Clicquot Club.
The narrator is a guy who can't seem to go beyond his label. He is African- American. It's a label that he carries with him everywhere he goes. African- American. Ask him about his world and he'll tell you that he's a social experiment: an African-American living in a white world. Go deeper---he tells you everything about himself---his prose is beautiful---his story is not. He is a well-educated, talented, attractive 35 year old African-American. Go deeper still, and you'll learn that he is also a recovering alcoholic, jobless, angry, African-American. Deeper still, he is an African-American married to a wealthy white woman and father of 3 young children. The people around him expect a lot from this multi-talented, multi-racial, you could say, multi-privileged, African-American. His dysfunctional African-American parents at least made sure he had a good education. Got him into Harvard. He had to leave after the first year because of a drunken brawl. After all, he is an African-American. Couldn't finish his dissertation because, well you see, writing about dead white guys is not an African-American thing. Follow him into the deepest recesses of his mind. Plumb the depths of his psyche, analyze his dreams; return him to the womb, go to previous generations. The answers to all his questions are right there on the label, label, label.
Man muddles through 2008-03-05
Nice but damaged man spends four days trying to scrape together enough money to rent apartment and pay for private school for kids apparently too precious for public school is too stressed and broke to eat but manages not to drink (one day at a time), sends mother's ashes and dead pet fish out to sea in a burning paper boat, and (spoiler coming) via a lucky golf swing and a little cheating wins thousands of dollars from some rich guys. Story woven around shimmering desciptions of digging out a decrepit town house sub-basement, a late night run from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back, encounters with snooty admissions lady and wary Bengladesh clerk behind plexiglass in ghetto bodega and other stuff does not entirely make up for the fact that the ratio of musings to plot advancement is ultimately too high. I skipped ahead and missed an important plot development--when did the fish die? But in the final analysis he's such a nice man I'm glad he doesn't go down.
You Can't Go Home Again 2008-03-01
If you like Thomas Wolf, without the gratuitous use of five-dollar words, then you might like "Man Gone Down. (One section certainly could have been called "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn", which had to be its influence.) However, if you savor construction, narrative and plot over ranting, then you will find this book frustrating and disappointing. Granted, these are well-written rants, but, after the book's wonderful, promising launch, I found myself often wondering, "Where is this going?" All too oftenthe answer is "Nowhere".
"Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes..." 2008-02-29
The book chronicles 4 days in the life and the life of a 35 year old African American, or to be precise, a Black Irish Indian. He is jobless, married to a white woman and Father of 3 young children. His wife and children leave for a few weeks to stay with his Mother-in-Law while he is left with finding a means to pay for the childrens' private school tuition and a new apartment. The story flows back and forth from the present (odd construction jobs; stream of mental ramblings) to the past - his childhood years, growing up in poverty, father's absences, his bouts of heavy alcohol consumption, racism/discrimination, his failure to meet the high expectations set for him (including dropping out of Harvard; failure to complete his book). He faces all types of temptations in the present including rage, suicide, alcohol, smoking, infidelity - yet he continues marching on through the hardships in this inspirational, deeply introspective story. This book will likely not appeal to the casual reader looking for a light and breezy plot - it is more aligned with the book assigned to you by your college professor in your "Good Books" class...deep, introspective, reflecting the environment of the times, and certainly over my head in pockets. All of this being said, this is an important, intelligently written novel which lives up to the best book of the year accolades (Top 10 NY Times Book of the Year in 2007; Amazon Book of the Year; Time 2007 Book of the Year). My ratings scheme with 10 being high grade:
Page Turner: 4 (Needs to be sipped rather than gulped)
Memorable: 9
Character Development: 10
Live the Story: 9
Flow / Easy to Follow: 6
