<![CDATA[A Good and Happy Child: A Novel]]>

false <![CDATA[A Good and Happy Child: A Novel]]>

117995

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 has had enough. She 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. Events, people, and strange situations come rushing back. 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. Were his ominous visions and erratic behavior the product of a grief-stricken child’s overactive imagination (a perfectly natural reaction to the trauma of loss, as his mother insisted)? Or were his father’s colleagues, who blamed a darker, more malevolent force, right to look to the supernatural as a means to end George’s suffering? Twenty years later, George still does not know. But 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.

113587

2007

A Good and Happy Child: A Novel

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0 5 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 10:00:10 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 10:00:10 -0700 2007 Labyrinth, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and The Librarian are some recent examples--I'll just scribble a curse on the title page and leave the book next to a t...more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 13 11:00:20 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 09:41:54 -0700 2008
Believe me, it lies. Must be the Satanic influence?

George Davies has an issue that make...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 05 14:52:59 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 06:55:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Aug 13 09:20:19 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 09:22:56 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false true Thu Dec 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 12:11:45 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 12:31:32 -0800 2008
Anyway: the book. As I was reading it I found this really gripping and pretty frightening (possibly because I was reading it in the wee hours of t...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 07:15:55 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 07:38:28 -0700 2009
"It was a house halfway between this and that, between upper-middle-class luxu...more...]]> 1 2 false false Fri Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 13 13:46:47 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 10:50:11 -0800 2009
Although I did manage to ...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Nov 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Oct 28 18:30:57 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 19:26:40 -0800 2009
Being the nerd that I am, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Julian of ...more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 01 07:00:50 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 03 20:36:06 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 17:21:03 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 17:30:54 -0700 2009 1 George Davies can't bring himself to be close to his child because he might infect him, and not with a dread disease, but with demonic possession. This is the first book I've read which might be called "experiencing serial...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Mar 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Feb 27 22:02:39 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 17 11:47:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 18:34:40 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 17 21:53:46 -0800 2007 3 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 27 14:59:20 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 27 15:03:01 -0700 2007
The storyline was interesting and kept me engaged, but I'm still determining if the 'issue' of the main character was real or imagined and some of the sub-characters could've been rounded out a little better.

]]> 4 0 false false Wed Feb 18 08:09:15 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 08:31:57 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Jan 23 11:19:23 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 23 11:19:23 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Thu Mar 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 26 15:58:27 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 26 16:07:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Feb 19 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 15:30:50 -0800 2009 Mon Apr 06 18:02:26 -0700 2009 The religious diatribe was a nice thread as well- what can we truly believe?
The writing really hooked me, ...more...]]> 2 0 false true Sat Nov 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 15 17:07:13 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 15 17:17:03 -0800 2008 Once more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Oct 31 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 17 11:59:38 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 31 21:20:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Oct 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 12:33:25 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 12:52:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=117995