Forthcoming from Astra House May 19th, 2026
Headshot meets John Cheever in this darkly funny, deeply moving portrait of what happens when a “sad dad” reconnects with a passion from his past.
When Ned finds his old Slazenger tennis racquet buried in the garage, he unearths a part of his former self. Having recently lost his job, his sole duty is to watch over their six-year-old son while his wife works. On a whim--and without his wife's knowledge--Ned joins his childhood tennis club with a secret credit card, where he finds life outside the realm of “sad dad” domesticity. He becomes the captain of a local men’s rec league team, reconnects with his old hitting partner and former tennis prodigy, Roland, and commits his whole sad self to building a winning team. But when Roland disappears, Ned’s search for his friend threatens to consume the path to glory, the relationship with his son, his marriage, and his mind.
A meditation on fathers and sons, male friendship, and the psychic pressures of an individual sport, Politanoff’s novel sits beautifully alongside the dark comedy of Iris Murdoch and the masculine angst of John Cheever, with a style all its own. Funny, poignant, and deeply relatable, Dad Had a Bad Day explores our desire for structure, the emotional limits of domestic life, and the unbelievably potent, powerful, intoxicating feeling of winning.
Praise
"This book is a triumph. Dripping in masculinity and self pity, Ned, college tennis star of yore, is thrillingly unhinged and now mooching off his hard-working, capable, professionally employed wife while he spirals in and out of old beefs and a renewed pursuit of on-court glory. Impeccably, propulsively, and hilariously rendered, Politanoff writes about tennis like Barry Hannah wrote about alcohol--something swift, additive, fun, life-giving and also totally filthy. I gulped this book whole in a single sitting. Nobody writes like Ashton Politanoff."
—Rita Bullwinkel, author of Headshot, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
"Dad Had a Bad Day is a funny, moving, often disturbing portrait of men—alone and in groups, as sons and fathers—filled with strange detail, bold swerves, and the idiosyncratic language of sport."
—Kathryn Scanlan, author of Kick the Latch
