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Title details for A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans - Available

A Good and Happy Child

A Novel

by Justin Evans
Mark Deakins
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available
Thirty-year-old George Davies can’t bring himself to hold his newborn son. After months of accepting his lame excuses and strange behavior, his wife demands that he see a therapist, and George, desperate to save his unraveling marriage and redeem himself as a father and husband, reluctantly agrees.
As he delves into his childhood memories, he begins to recall things he hasn’t thought of in twenty years. The odd, rambling letters his father sent home before he died. The jovial mother who started dating too soon after his father’s death. A boy who appeared one night when George was lonely, then told him secrets he didn’t want to know. How no one believed this new friend was real and that he was responsible for the bad things that were happening.
Terrified by all that he has forgotten, George struggles to remember what really happened in the months following his father’s death. And when a mysterious murder is revealed, remembering the past becomes the only way George can protect himself—and his young family.
A psychological thriller in the tradition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History—with shades of The Exorcist—the smart and suspenseful A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD leaves you questioning the things you remember and frightened of the things you’ve forgotten

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 22, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415937181
      • File size: 318872 KB
      • Duration: 11:04:18

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      George Davies is in therapy because of his inability to handle his infant son. In most of the book, Mark Deakins narrates from George's perspective as he journals about his youth. Following his own father's sudden death, he found himself immersed in warring worlds of psychiatric and religious treatment as he plunged into a world of delusion or demonic possession. The calm, measured tones of the medical professionals portrayed by Deakins are in high contrast to the strong Southern and Midwestern accents of the believers who hope to exorcise the young George. This is scary stuff, made more powerful by Deakins's cagily balanced, straightforward delivery. D.P.D. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 12, 2007
      This stunning novel marks the debut of a serious talent. Evans manages to take a familiar concept—the young child haunted by a demon invisible to others—and infuse it with psychological depth and riveting suspense. The setting alternates between George Davies's difficult childhood in Preston, Va., a small college town, after his father Paul's untimely death, and his equally challenging life as an adult and new father in New York City. Ostracized by his classmates and emotionally isolated by his mother, a struggling academic, young George begins to be visited by a doppelgĂ€nger, who, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, intimates that foul play was involved in Paul's death. When those visitations lead to violence, George begins receiving psychiatric treatment. Meanwhile, some of his late father's colleagues claim that demonic possession is a reality. Evans subtly evokes terror and anxiety with effective understatement. The intelligence and humanity of this thriller should help launch it onto bestseller lists.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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