The Man

by Laura Sims

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction; Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

PRAISED BY ANA REYES, MONA AWAD, ANDREA BARTZ, VANESSA CHAN, DANIELLE TRUSSONI, AND MORE!

"Fiercely intelligent and deeply chilling. . . . The perfect book club read." —Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Pines

From the highly acclaimed author of How Can I Help You, a New York Times Best Thriller of the Year: a singular take on the psychological suspense novel that follows a 1960s housewife turned amateur photographer who begins to fear for her life when she notices the dark silhouette of a man in the background of her self-portraits.

The photos Judith Stanley takes are just for her, a private passion to fill her suburban days. But when she shares them with Paul Sorenson, her new photography instructor, she's unprepared to hear his astonished praise. "Stunning," he calls her photos. "Extraordinary." She has an uncanny eye, he says, and should consider publication. He could help. Except Judith has no interest in sharing her work; in fact, the mere idea of it frightens her.

Still, emboldened by Paul’s encouragement, Judith ventures out beyond her quiet neighborhood to the city in search of increasingly striking images. When she starts to notice the dark shape of a man in the corner of her self-portraits, Judith is certain he's an attacker from her past. She doesn't know why he has returned, but she's sure of his presence: the hoarse sound of his breathing, his hard grip on her elbow. Perhaps it would appease the man if she were to put her camera down and give up her private passion. But she can't; she refuses. Until one night when the man finally emerges from the shadows, and Judith’s story suddenly and irrevocably becomes his own.

Chilling and heart-poundingly propulsive, The Man is a phenomenal and timely novel exploring the inescapable fear of living as a woman, the tantalizing seduction of artistic freedom, and the very real dangers that lurk both inside and outside the confines of the mind. The Man marks Laura Sims as an extraordinary talent at the top of her game; and this, her third novel, is her greatest achievement yet.

Release date: July 7, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 304

Sample

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I spot her through my Nikon lens at the annual Columbus Day Parade. Beyond the majorettes' ecstatic rouged faces and kicking legs, a teenage girl stands apart from the cheering crowd, darkly clothed and oddly still amidst the revelry. Her eyes were averted but now she looks straight at me, her mouth tremulous, mascaraed tears tracking down her face, offering up her misery like a gift.

I take it. I take one shot after another until she turns quickly and disappears into the crowd.

I have to stop myself from running after her. She reminds me of the young girl I once was, raw and hurting. I feel a stab of pain in my side and press hard against the spot while closing my eyes. I haven't felt this for a long, long time.

A blare from the band's trumpet startles me back to the present. The pain has ebbed and the girl is gone, so I lift my camera and shoot a small boy with his eyes trained upward on the yellow balloon he holds in his hand. Next, I shoot a middle-aged woman lost in thought, her hands clapping but her face a blank mask. I keep moving, keep shooting, relishing each shutter click, all the while knowing that every picture will pale in comparison to the ones I've taken of the tortured girl.

I can't quite believe she was real.

As soon as I get home, I lock myself in the darkroom and work furiously until the negatives are hanging to dry. Later, staring at my contact sheet under the loupe in the bright light of my kitchen, I see proof of the girl's existence, and that her photographs are as good as I hoped they would be. Or feared: a new and terrible spasm goes through me. I sit down hard on a chair, waiting for it to pass. When it does, I stare at her some more. I'm not sure how long it's been when I hear someone clearing his throat and glance up to find Tom standing in the doorway. Looking tentative, as if he's caught me doing something obscene. I manage to give him my best smile.

"Dinner's lasagna. It'll be ready in thirty minutes or so," I tell him. He frowns slightly and scans my face. Drops his eyes for a moment to the contact sheet.

"Get any good ones today?" he asks, and I but don't elaborate or share. Instead, I ask him to set the dining room table, then I turn my attention back to my loupe, to the contact sheet, and to the girl I've caught on film. Parade Girl, I'll call her, since I'll never know her name.

2.

Professor Sorenson looks up from the handful of prints I've given him and studies me like he's seeing me for the first time: the quiet woman in his Introduction to Photography class. The one who's lingered timidly until everyone else finished their first "portfolio check" and left. Now we stand across from each other in the empty, semidarkened lecture hall, and I'm pleased at his surprise; my pictures aren't what he expected: smiling children, flowers in bloom, or middle-aged women raising wineglasses in a birthday toast.

"Judith, right?" he says. When I nod, he drops his eyes again to the photographs. He's moving through the pack slowly, drawing closer to Parade Girl. It may be the best picture I've ever taken, but I nearly left it out. I feared he'd look into her face, into those tearing eyes, and see the younger me-like I did. Ridiculous, I tell myself. Impossible. But I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction. When he reaches her, I watch his eyes move slowly over every inch of her face and the people around her with flags waving, mouths shouting. He shakes his head but doesn't look up.

"This is terrific," he says, quiet enough to be talking to himself. "Just terrific." I let out my breath, relieved, though my cheeks warm with his words of praise. I can suddenly hear the loud ticking of the classroom clock. "Every single one of these is stunning, Judith. You have an uncanny eye." I'm too flustered to respond at first, so I reach for my pictures. But when he hands them to me-reluctantly, it seems-I simply want to hand them back. To keep living in the moment of watching him love my photographs.

"Thank you, Professor," I say at last.

"Call me Paul. Everyone else does." He smiles. "And you've got nothing to thank me for-the pleasure is all mine. Have you thought about submitting these to magazines? There's-"

"No," I say. He's taken aback. But the thought of making my pictures public makes my skin crawl. As if he's asked me to stand naked on the town green-though that wasn't his intention, I know. "Thank you," I add, putting more emphasis on the words this time. Professor-Paul-nods and holds up his hands.

"I get it," he says, though I know he doesn't; he can't. "It's a private passion. But you should think about it." I lie and say I will, then thank him again and turn to go. But before I can get to the top of the steps, he calls my name: Judith. I like hearing him say it, knowing that now he knows exactly who I am.

"Bring me your work anytime. I'd love to see more."

I haven't thought beyond tonight, past satisfying a class requirement. I never dreamed Paul would react this way-or that I'd want to show him more. But the force behind his words and his pleading smile act on me like a stiff old-fashioned-my grandmother's drink-coursing through my veins.

What could it hurt, to show him more?

3.

"What does that even mean?" Tom asks, forking up a bite of steak. He's puzzled by Paul's comment about my "uncanny eye." I don't know why I mentioned it; he doesn't like hearing about photography class. Why go to school for something you're already good at? he asked when I first brought up taking the yearlong class at the local community college. Really, he didn't like the change it would mean-the change in our Tuesday nights, or the possible change in me. And now I've blurted out what Paul said last night, and Tom is resentful. Confused, and possibly suspicious, too-of my male professor taking an interest. He chews and looks at me.

"It means I see things . . . differently, I guess." The back of my neck burns. I wish I kept it to myself. Pride will out, I suppose-like Grandmother used to say. "Or maybe the professor didn't know what to say, but he knew he had to say something," I offer with a half-hearted laugh, careful to say the professor, not Paul. It gives me too much of a thrill to say Paul, and Tom would see it in my face.

We go on cutting, chewing, and swallowing the steak, asparagus, and potatoes au gratin: our habitual Wednesday-night meal, one that hasn't changed since before Tom Junior left home. Nothing more is said about Paul, or photography class, or my "uncanny eye." I'm relieved he's let it go, but wistful, too. Tom tells me about his day, about the ongoing politics of the Harrington Public Works Department. Normally I get caught up in these reports: Travis left the meeting abruptly? Sven and Jonathan said that only to you? Are you sure? Tonight, though, I drift away, savoring Paul's words and the look on his face when he saw my pictures: open-eyed, surprised, more alert than I'd ever seen him, even in the midst of one of his energized lectures.

If he'd been a dog, his ears would have perked up. Like our little Rosie. Dead for three weeks now. Buried in the backyard, under the magnificent cherry tree. Tom wouldn't let me help. He was sad, too, I knew, and wanted time to himself with Rosie in her box and the growing pile of dirt by his worn leather work shoes. I watched from the back window, wiping my tears with a dish towel. Sweet Rosie, my Rosie. Tom Junior had called in disbelief, as if he'd thought she would go on whining for scraps by the dining room table forever, Tom ceaselessly shooing her away while we all laughed.

I'd believed it, too.

I blink back tears and take a bite of potatoes. It sticks in my throat. I have to gulp water to keep from choking. Tom stares at me bug-eyed.

"You okay, Judy?"

I drag the cloth napkin across my mouth, nod and smile. "I'm fine," I say, and reach to put my hand over his. He squeezes my fingers. I don't want Tom getting worked up. The doctor said he should be calm and steady, so I have to be calm and steady, too.

When I came home from wandering a nearby town with my camera last Sunday to find Tom slumped on the living room rug, I instantly thought of Rosie: how I'd found her stretched out, too still and silent to be sleeping. Her little chest should have been rising and falling; I should have heard her adorable snore. I knelt by Tom and shook him just the way I'd shaken Rosie. Tom! Tom! I said, until I heard the slightest groan. I waited until I heard one more, just the smallest sound and a puff of breath. Then I ran to the kitchen phone and called the ambulance, dismayed by the operator's nonchalance. Where did your husband collapse, ma'am? Can you find his pulse? Does he seem to be breathing? Is the house number clearly displayed? If not, you may want to wait on your porch.

I had no intention of waiting outside. I stayed by Tom, smoothing his thinned hair back from his forehead, talking to him the way I used to talk to Tom Junior when he was young and drowsy with sickness. It's okay, honey, you'll be fine. Just hang on. You'll feel better soon. It's all right. But the whole time I was vibrating with fear. I tried to bargain with the god I'd never fully believed in, even after all the forced churchgoing of my youth: No more. Not now. Not ever, please. Please.

Even fixed in that pleading state, though, I stared at Tom's slack face and wanted my camera. It was just behind me, just out of reach; I'd dropped it as I came in the door. In my head I left myself trembling on the carpet and saw him coldly, as if through the camera lens: the loose O of his mouth, the slight twitching of his eyelids over his large, straight nose. I noticed the blue carpet fiber that sprung up like a solid sea around his pale still form, and saw how I would frame it all. Except I wouldn't, of course; that would have been ghoulish and wrong.

I'd taken pictures of Rosie after she'd died, kneeling on the same blue carpet and lowering the lens to be level with her little face that had always been grinning and mischievous in life but had frozen now, solidified. I took a few shots to preserve this last memory of her, but once I developed the film, I stored the prints in the locked filing cabinet drawer that holds my private documents, the ones that even Tom hasn't seen. Rosie's death photos would rest in a file beside the brittle, yellowed article from my old hometown paper that reads, "Local Girl Attacked by Afternoon Intruder." I didn't like putting Rosie next to such ugliness, but I couldn't face her death any more than I could face the past, so I left her there.

My other reminders from that long-ago time can't be locked in a drawer. Moving my free hand under the table now, I find the scarring along my inner thighs: the bumps and ridges and bubbled skin that have been mine for years. Just after we made love for the first time, I told Tom the scarring was from a kitchen accident-a terrible spill. Even though I'm not sure he believed me, he acted as though he did, and has never brought it up since. It's remarkable, really-that in all these years he's never mentioned it. Not once. The most he does is run his hand over the spot now and then, saying nothing-but making me shiver and recoil.

He squeezes my hand again, bringing me back to the here and now. To the dining room table and to the life we've built in this small brick house on our quiet, tree-lined street. The past retreats-Rosie's death, Tom's sudden collapse, my ancient incident-but I sense it all hovering. Waiting for something: a window, an opening.

4.

In town the next day, I shop for champagne and a gift for Samantha and Hal's twenty-fifth anniversary party. As I walk along Main Street, acquaintances ask after Tom's health or comment on Rosie's absence and I have to tell them, He's doing just fine, or, Rosie died three weeks ago. Most people respond lightly to Rosie's death, offering mild sympathy-she was only a dog, after all. A pet. But she was my constant companion, beside me for more hours of the day than Tom, even. I whispered to her when she curled on my lap; she always listened intently. She held all my secrets, never judging me or loving me less for them.

I can't say that in public, though. I simply say, "Thank you," and move along.

Toward the end of the street, I pause in front of Mr. Katz's old toy store, whose oddly formal window display hasn't changed in years: dusty teddy bears, alphabet blocks, and empty-eyed dolls. But what's different today, what catches my eye is . . . myself. From the neck down, I'm a dark female shape reflected in the center of the window, with blue sky surrounding me and one wilted teddy bear caught in the bell of my skirt. Above it all, my face looms, bright and alive. I've seen myself reflected in windows before, of course, but something about this, about the composition, sets the back of my neck tingling. I fish my Nikon out of my purse, lift it chest-high, and click the button.

I think of Paul admiring the finished print, saying, Incredible. The composition is striking. That uncanny eye of yours at work again, Judith.

Pure nonsense, of course. I don't even know if it will come out well. Or if I'll show Paul more pictures after all. He said he wanted to see them, but what if he was simply being polite? I believed him at the time, but now, with a little distance, I realize I may have been starstruck, naïve. Paul has had a picture in Harper's, after all; what could he possibly see in mine?