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Audiobook11 hours
A Good and Happy Child: A Novel
Written by Justin Evans
Narrated by Mark Deakins
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
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
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
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Author
Justin Evans
Justin Evans, the author of A Good and Happy Child, is a digital media executive in New York City, where he lives with his wife and their two children.
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Reviews for A Good and Happy Child
Rating: 3.5707548632075468 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
212 ratings18 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I read this whole book, so it gets more than one star, but it was something of a disappointment.It's remarkably down on psychiatry, and while I admit the field has its failings, I find the relentlessly negative portrayal a little one-sided and tiresome. But that's not what irritated me the most about this novel. Most of the characters are faceless names, essentially interchangeable suits of clothing interacting with one another, but even that didn't irritate me much.The most irritating thing about this novel is the narrator's voice. It's not consistent with the set-up of the novel. An example passage, written by George of Today from his memories as a child of eleven, summing up a person he's recently met:"No, there was another type that gravitated to Preston. Unlike their sensualist brethren, these were professionals, often out-of-towners, who quietly fell in love with Stoneland County's creeks and mountains and honeysuckle---and out of love with their white-collar jobs. They moved through Preston society with a gentle, almost monastic air, like they'd found something so special they didn't want to move too fast, or speak too loud, for fear of breaking it. Kurt, I reckoned quickly, was one of these." (70)So, George is supposed to be precocious. I get that. I'm the mother of a precocious just-turned-twelve myself, and they do say some remarkably insightful things. But precocious or not, an eleven-year-old is not going to make observations like these. This kind of remote, somewhat sarcastic generalization of a population is something an adult would do, not a precocious pre-teen. I could see a teen doing this sort of thing, accurate or not, showing off their worldliness, but at eleven, I'm not sure that kind of awareness has developed. Eleven is still so inward-focused.And sure, one could argue that this was written by an adult as a memory of childhood (even though he says that he "reckoned quickly" that Kurt was a particular type, implying that he did this at age eleven), and he could have come to these conclusions over years of reflection, but on the very first page, the narrator tells us, "In fact, I can honestly say I had no memory of the events I describe in these pages---meaning no conscious memory, no current memory. They are things I experienced in childhood, then tucked away in a file along with the soccer games, the Christmas presents, and the illicit midnight Nutter Butters."This doesn't sound like the kind of memory one has turned over in one's brain over the decades. He's shut the door on these memories, and that implies that all of his reflections will be those of his eleven-year-old self. So either the author overstated the lack of memory at the beginning (a rather melodramatic move), or he wrote all of the "notebook" recollections from a perspective that doesn't fit the story. Maybe one could argue that (view spoiler) And if it's all supposed to be notebooks, even setting aside my incredulity that he can remember all of that dialogue so clearly and that he would write in that much detail a part of his life that he's not even thought about in thirty years, I don't really see how the shift to present tense in the last part of the closing chapter makes sense. Did he go back and write that bit in present tense in the notebook? I just don't buy it.And that's the biggest problem I have with this novel. Despite some pleasantly spooky scenes and an interesting theme, I just don't buy it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5George’s marriage is ending because he cannot bring himself to touch his newborn son- even though he loves the child. His therapist suggests that he writes in a journal to try and uncover the reason; the ensuing outpouring is a tale of horror from when he was eleven years old. Dealing with the recent and unexpected death of his father and other changes in his household, he becomes haunted by his Friend, an entity that looks just like him- an entity that causes violence to happen to people. The question is: Is the Friend real, and a demon, or is George mentally ill and performing the violence himself from some subconscious need? The authorities believe the latter, but friends of George’s father believe the former, because of beliefs the father held. A tug of war ensues for the right to help George; it becomes psychiatrist versus religion. Who is right? The story is creepy and you just never know if George is mentally ill or if he is truly possessed. Just as you’re convinced he’s mentally ill, an event happens that is definitely supernatural- an event seen by two other people. This introduces a third option- that there is a poltergeist, activated by George’s subconscious turmoil. This book is a horror story that reminds me a lot of some of what was written in the 70s- The Exorcist, The Omen. It has the same ability to make the skin crawl because of the uncertainty as to what is real- and how far the violence and evil may go. I’m surprised that no one has made a movie of this yet.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed the writing more than I enjoyed the plot, but both were very good. [note to self: write more when life calms down]
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do demons exist? Is a person automatically deluded for believing demons exist? Is demonic possession ever a viable diagnosis or can psychiatry adequately explain the oftentimes bizarre phenomena associated with those alleged to be possessed in its gargantuan compendium of itemized psychological disorders as voluminous as there are verses in the Bible?Justin Evans' first novel, A Good and Happy Child pivots around this historically polemical debate, pitting in one corner, the empiricists with their Thorazine and mental institutions, versus the religious with their stoles and exorcising incantations in the other. Yet, despite the infinitely wide philosophical worldview divide, A Good and Happy Child remains relatively neutral choosing a side to cheer for, in its clever and crisp first person narrative, despite a devilishly delightful book cover which could convey otherwise, its obvious opinion on the matter.George Davies is the good and happy child of Justin Evans' remarkably riveting debut, only George may not be "good" and he's definitely not a "happy child". O the impish irony of Evans' book title! Should've seen the irony coming when Evans inserts an Auden quote as his preface:All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are,Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or goodWe meet George presenting his psychotherapist his life in turmoil: a sad, unimaginable scenario in which George can't hold, let alone touch, his newborn child. He's never touched his baby boy once. And he can't satisfactorily articulate why. His wife, understandably, is outraged over his awful aversion to their baby; what she justifiably perceives as his outright rejection of his own defenseless flesh and blood. Does she really know this man? How can a father not hold his own child? What the hell's wrong with him?!Maybe Hell, literally, (or at least Hell's occupants), are his problem.His wife insists George seek treatment or their marriage is over. He's begrudgingly obliged.At the outset of therapy, since he's uncommunicative (not uncommon) his therapist asks him to write about what happened to him when he was eleven (because at least that much has risen to the surface - something bad happened to him at eleven, but what?).In George's journal, we learn what happened: A disembodied face appeared to George in the shower: Demon, or delusion? A "Friend," an entity we'll come to know later as "The Other George," visits him at night: Imp, or imagination? When George looks in the mirror and sees The Other George reflected back, only not reflecting George's own movements or facial expressions as a proper mirror should, we wonder: Reality, or hallucination? Spooky stuff, no matter what's really happening.Complicating matters, family-wise, George's father, Paul, is dead. How did he die? Demons killed him in Honduras, if we're to believe his close friends, Tom Harris, medieval scholar, amateur exorcist; Clarissa Bing, psychotherapist and deacon well versed in demonology, and an amateur exorcist herself; and Freddie, George's good natured godfather. George's mother, Joan, doesn't subscribe to her late husband's friend's beliefs, not at all; she's a (according to George) "liberal who doesn't believe anything." Her late husband, Paul, wrote a book not long before he died ascribing belief in demons, known to George as "That Book" (how his mother pejoratively denotes it) and it cost George's father his academic reputation and, by association, cracked off a chunk of George's mother's academic credibility, and loads of social embarrassment to boot. This polarization between religious/empirical beliefs in a university setting plagues the entire novel (in a good way) as divergent beliefs (and the subsequent actions taken based on those beliefs) escalates and adds even more tension and butting-heads conflict to an already tense and exciting - and scary! - reading experience.So are we to believe what George wrote in his journal? His therapist asks George point blank: Do you believe it; that it was demons; that you were possessed? We know the therapist doesn't believe. But what we don't know is how whatever George believes will effect the rest of his life. His marriage. His baby boy.I believe future readers, regardless of what George believes, will be as enthralled with this thrilling psychological?/supernatural? (both?) thriller as I was.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/54.5 stars. I couldn't stop reading this! I was definitely spooked!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5George’s marriage is ending because he cannot bring himself to touch his newborn son- even though he loves the child. His therapist suggests that he writes in a journal to try and uncover the reason; the ensuing outpouring is a tale of horror from when he was eleven years old. Dealing with the recent and unexpected death of his father and other changes in his household, he becomes haunted by his Friend, an entity that looks just like him- an entity that causes violence to happen to people. The question is: Is the Friend real, and a demon, or is George mentally ill and performing the violence himself from some subconscious need? The authorities believe the latter, but friends of George’s father believe the former, because of beliefs the father held. A tug of war ensues for the right to help George; it becomes psychiatrist versus religion. Who is right? The story is creepy and you just never know if George is mentally ill or if he is truly possessed. Just as you’re convinced he’s mentally ill, an event happens that is definitely supernatural- an event seen by two other people. This introduces a third option- that there is a poltergeist, activated by George’s subconscious turmoil. This book is a horror story that reminds me a lot of some of what was written in the 70s- The Exorcist, The Omen. It has the same ability to make the skin crawl because of the uncertainty as to what is real- and how far the violence and evil may go. I’m surprised that no one has made a movie of this yet.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/54.5 Stars
I'm surprised that this book has such a low rating on GR. I loved it from start to finish - couldn't put it down. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What a weird book, but in this case, that's a good thing. There are elements of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, Poltergeist, & lots of Freud. Is the protagonist possessed, insane, or reacting as logically as he can to very illogical circumstances? It's never quite clear, and I found myself reading certain passages several times, unable to decide. Even at the end of the book, I still wasn't sure, but enjoyed trying to decipher the puzzle.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The idea was thought-provoking and definitely disturbing.The ending was tremendously shocking. Not everyone's cup of tea. What I did find frustrating was that one gets no sense of conclusion as to what the author thinks is actually going on. No doubt this was a deliberate ploy, but in this instance I found it frustrating, because I wanted to know whether I was reading a ghost story or a straight-out psychological thriller. No I'm not going to tell you the end, go read the book :-)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark, subtle, ambiguous, and surprisingly effective. If you can imagine taking "The Exorcist," "The Other," and "The Turn of the Screw" (with maybe a dash of "Ordinary People" thrown in for bitterness) and shaking them up like a vodka martini, you might have some idea of the nature of this book. If you're a fan of quiet horror (as I am) you probably have to search pretty hard to find new, good examples of the genre. This is one. And it will stick with you for awhile. Evans manages to find just the right balance between fairy tale horror, spiritual pressure points, and shockingly heart-breaking modern realism. Very, very nicely done.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Compelling, and a decent read, but not really scary. It's kind of neither fish nor fowl, not quite succeeding as either a literary novel or genre fiction.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really nice novel, simply told, deceptively resonant. The kind of book that comes back at you. A bit well-made, it's rightly pegged as a "literary thriller." Avoiding the pyrotechnics of the masters of the genre, it tells a quiet, human, supernatural story that works whether it's all true or all allegory. As a parent, I can say it's certainly the latter. Whether Evans turns into a real writer (it's not his day job), and if so whether he stays in the genre, it's a brilliant first book: a well-told, vividly imagined ghost story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do demons exist? Is a person automatically deluded for believing demons exist? Is demonic possession ever a viable diagnosis or can psychiatry adequately explain the oftentimes bizarre phenomena associated with those alleged to be possessed in its gargantuan compendium of itemized psychological disorders as voluminous as there are verses in the Bible?Justin Evans' first novel, A Good and Happy Child pivots around this historically polemical debate, pitting in one corner, the empiricists with their Thorazine and mental institutions, versus the religious with their stoles and exorcising incantations in the other. Yet, despite the infinitely wide philosophical worldview divide, A Good and Happy Child remains relatively neutral choosing a side to cheer for, in its clever and crisp first person narrative, despite a devilishly delightful book cover which could convey otherwise, its obvious opinion on the matter.George Davies is the good and happy child of Justin Evans' remarkably riveting debut, only George may not be "good" and he's definitely not a "happy child". O the impish irony of Evans' book title! Should've seen the irony coming when Evans inserts an Auden quote as his preface:All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are,Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or goodWe meet George presenting his psychotherapist his life in turmoil: a sad, unimaginable scenario in which George can't hold, let alone touch, his newborn child. He's never touched his baby boy once. And he can't satisfactorily articulate why. His wife, understandably, is outraged over his awful aversion to their baby; what she justifiably perceives as his outright rejection of his own defenseless flesh and blood. Does she really know this man? How can a father not hold his own child? What the hell's wrong with him?!Maybe Hell, literally, (or at least Hell's occupants), are his problem.His wife insists George seek treatment or their marriage is over. He's begrudgingly obliged.At the outset of therapy, since he's uncommunicative (not uncommon) his therapist asks him to write about what happened to him when he was eleven (because at least that much has risen to the surface - something bad happened to him at eleven, but what?).In George's journal, we learn what happened: A disembodied face appeared to George in the shower: Demon, or delusion? A "Friend," an entity we'll come to know later as "The Other George," visits him at night: Imp, or imagination? When George looks in the mirror and sees The Other George reflected back, only not reflecting George's own movements or facial expressions as a proper mirror should, we wonder: Reality, or hallucination? Spooky stuff, no matter what's really happening.Complicating matters, family-wise, George's father, Paul, is dead. How did he die? Demons killed him in Honduras, if we're to believe his close friends, Tom Harris, medieval scholar, amateur exorcist; Clarissa Bing, psychotherapist and deacon well versed in demonology, and an amateur exorcist herself; and Freddie, George's good natured godfather. George's mother, Joan, doesn't subscribe to her late husband's friend's beliefs, not at all; she's a (according to George) "liberal who doesn't believe anything." Her late husband, Paul, wrote a book not long before he died ascribing belief in demons, known to George as "That Book" (how his mother pejoratively denotes it) and it cost George's father his academic reputation and, by association, cracked off a chunk of George's mother's academic credibility, and loads of social embarrassment to boot. This polarization between religious/empirical beliefs in a university setting plagues the entire novel (in a good way) as divergent beliefs (and the subsequent actions taken based on those beliefs) escalates and adds even more tension and butting-heads conflict to an already tense and exciting - and scary! - reading experience.So are we to believe what George wrote in his journal? His therapist asks George point blank: Do you believe it; that it was demons; that you were possessed? We know the therapist doesn't believe. But what we don't know is how whatever George believes will effect the rest of his life. His marriage. His baby boy.I believe future readers, regardless of what George believes, will be as enthralled with this thrilling psychological?/supernatural? (both?) thriller as I was.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For some reason, George Davies cannot bring himself to hold or touch his newborn son, almost like a voice telling him not to. Trying to appease his young wife, George seeks the help from a psychiatrist. During their first session, he tells the doctor that this isn't his first encounter with a psychiatrist. While still a child, George's mother made him sit down with another such doctor, only a few months after his father died in their house. Hoping to find some connection between his childhood visits and the present problem, the psychiatrist gives George a blank journal, instructing him to write down anything he can remember from that time in his childhood.George writes and soon uncovers memories long ago forgotten. About a mysterious Friend whose face appeared in the shower one morning. About a woman at a tent revival who spoke in tongues. About his father's dealing with religious circles and demons. About his father's abrupt trip to Honduras. About George's own possible possession and those who fought for him and those who didn't believe him. Were his memories real? Was he possessed by a demon? How do these events form his past factor into his present inability to touch his child?A wonderfully written psychological thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and refused to let me stop reading for a moment. Was George simply acting out his anger at his father's death, or did a demon actually possess him? My sympathies seesawed so many times that I never really knew what to believe until the very end. And even then, the question of possession still lingered.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Attracted by the provocative title and stirring cover art, I happened upon Justin Evans' debut novel in the new acquisitions section of our town library. What a find. "A Good and Happy Child" had me in its grip and reading into the wee hours, much like The Exorcist did thirty-something years ago. And like that earlier work, Evans' book is populated with flesh and blood characters who speak genuine dialogue, arouse the reader's emotional and intellectual attachments to their situations, and present two convincing views of a psychological/spiritual struggle with traumatic events. Told entirely in the first person, the book opens in present day, with the adult George Davies addressing his therapist. Provided with a supply of notebooks to write and reveal to himself the torments of his childhood, George's journals then become the bulk of the novel, in which he seeks the cause of his inability to have physical contact with his infant son. A richly satisfying read, evocative of the earlier and better works of King and Koontz. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was a bit disappointed in this. It was allegedly a chilling tale of possession, a scary psychological thriller, etc. But it wasn't. At least not for me. George initially visits a therapist because he's unable to hold his son. Then, while writing some journals, he spontaneously remembers some events in his childhood that occurred soon after the death of his father, events that led him and some others around him to believe he was possessed.It was hard to believe that anyone could repress memories that included some of what happened. (Not going into specifics because of spoilers.) There were one or two scenes that were pretty creepy, but this book didn't even come close to keeping me up at night. Frankly, I feel the reviews overhyped it a lot. The writing was good, and the idea was interesting, but it's no Exorcist. (Okay, the writing wasn't nearly as pulpy as Blatty's, but neither was the book as scary.)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Interesting premise. Some annoying holes in the plot. Where was George's friend for the past 20 years? Why would he now be interested in the baby rather than George? He didn't befriend George until George's father had died. The writing is kind of clunky at times. Jolted me out of the story. I plodded along for weeks reading a couple of pages at a time but I read the last 1/4 of the book in an evening. Not sorry I read it. Not the best I've read.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I mistook the genre of this book: as soon as it devolved into the unrealistic demonic part it lost me. Skimmed the rest. Bad writing to boot.