A Good and Happy Child

"My mother, at that time, was like two women trussed together, like rosebushes my father tied to a single stake to make them look more full." What a writer. Compelling suspense told with a poet's sensibility. I can't wait to read more.

One of the more interesting things about The Exorcist was when Father Merrick came to save a little girl possessed with an demon, the priest had encountered it before. In A Good and Happy Child, first time novelist Justin Evans takes up some of those same themes, and adds a bit of A Sixth Sense and a Stephen King style to his story about a lonely 11 year-old boy who may have inherited his late father's battle with a demonic force. George Davies grew up with two parents who taught him more literary values than the typical child, thus he was harassed as being "different." Still trying to navigate the world after the death of his father some months ago, George discovers a mysterious entity has also entered into his life, causing even more trouble. But who or what is this Friend? And what is the connection between it and his father, who died of malaria in South America? And why is his father's friend, Tom Harris, trying to hide letters from George that may explain all of this? In what might amount to a stunning debut, Evans novel is wrapped in terror and psychological suspense. The book deftly navigates between the clinical work of people who believe him to a danger to himself and others, while three people try to help him in some horrifying scenes of an exorcism. The book grabbed me from the start -something that I find rarer these days - with its literary style, with its attention to detail such as dialect pronunciation (something Stephen King has made a career of) and with the whole "father issue" that could make even the best psychiatrist a little hesitant to take on. A worthwhile read at beach or anywhere.

"A Good and Happy Child" opens in Manhattan, where thirty-year-old George Davies is about to revisit his nightmarish past. He is an only child, his parents are dead, and he has just become a new father after four years of marriage. However, much to his wife's consternation, George cannot bring himself to hold his own baby. Just the thought of picking up the little boy fills him with boundless anxiety. George's wife is horrified. "How could she stay married to a man who couldn't care for his own child?" In desperation, George visits a psychiatrist named Dr. Surman to help him get to the root of his problems. George begins to recall events from his early years growing up as the son of college professors in the Bible Belt town of Preston, Virginia. In 1982, at the age of eleven, George was a pudgy and nerdy kid, the butt of teasing by classroom bullies. His father, Paul, died after contracting a mysterious illness in Honduras, and the boy is worried that his mother will find another man to replace his dad. Among the candidates is Tom Harris, Paul's best friend, who has a doctorate from Harvard, but who is physically unkempt and harbors some strange ideas about religion. When George sees a disembodied face staring at him in the shower one day, he faints. His mother, Joan, calls her friend, psychologist Clarissa Bing, for a referral. However, in spite of visits with his therapist, Richard Manning, George continues to see his "Friend," who may be a demon or simply a figment of his overactive and troubled imagination. As time passes, George suffers from headaches, sleeplessness, anxiety, and eventually panic. The "demon" is putting unpleasant ideas in his head, and these ideas lead to tragic outcomes that may or may not be George's doing. Justin Evans is a craftsman whose highly literate prose style is smooth, precise, and beautifully descriptive. His off-beat plot is disturbing and ambiguous; it is not always clear what is really going on as the author reenacts George's past with vivid and terrifying flashbacks. Is the protagonist a delusional young man with a "shadow self," an evil twin who embodies his repressed desires? Or is there a supernatural explanation for the strange events that have left him paralyzed and miserable? Now that he is an adult, George is terrified that a force that he cannot control will prevent him from being a responsible parent, a person able to raise "a good and happy child." George's psychiatrist disdains otherworldly explanations: "There are no monsters out there, George." In our age of literal-mindedness and cynicism, do we dare entertain the possibility of demonic possession? Justin Evans challenges his readers to throw off the shackles of reason and open up our minds to the frightening possibility that, as Shakespeare said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." "A Good and Happy Child" is an original and disturbing work of fiction about a

Sadly, I don't have alot of spare time for reading, at least I had not been reading the way that I used to. So often I'd start a book, get 30 pages deep and then weeks would go by before I had the time or interest to pick it back up...not this time! A Good and Happy Child completely sucked me in and I could not stop until I was finished... even got me back to reading in bed (except sometimes I was scared and had to put it down... but the suspense got me and I'd flick the light back on and dive back in). Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for such a well written, witty and captivating page turner. I credit you with turning me back into a reader so BRAVO Mr Evans, please keep the ideas and words flowing... anxiously awaiting your next release...

This is not only a great book, well written, but led me want to read it with a book group so that we could discuss the issues it presents in the story. How do we make sense of "evil" in the world? Where does it come from and how can we stop it? This book deserves to be widely read, both for its great story, but for the issues on which it's based. Hope it doesn't get ignored in the desire for light summer reading.