Neither A Good Nor Happy Child

Categories: Mystery & Suspense , Fiction

Justin Evans’ psychological thriller debut, A Good and Happy Child doesn’t open, it launches.   Once began, the story grimly informs the reader that the protagonist, George Davies is neither good nor happy. 

George Davies is a married New Yorker with a newborn son.  George and his wife aren't getting along because he cannot hold his infant son.   His wife orders him to seek help, so he begins to see a psychiatrist and record his past in notebooks.  Each chapter is representative of a notebook and they reveal that George was admitted to a mental institution in his adolescent years for violent behavior and possible demonic possession. 

Young George claimed to hear multiple voices and see visions of a face like his own, which he calls his 'Friend'.  George's friend is in reality 'Other George' and when he's around, the air crackles with murderous ire resulting in very bad events.  George's father died under suspicious circumstances having to do with a 'demon'.  This family secret was long buried until George makes the same claims, sees analogous visions and hears similar voices as his father.  George's mother has him institutionalized while the Charlottesville priest has him exorcised.  George appears to be well, moves to New York, and lives a normal life until his son is born. 

Evans provides an insider's view to the pain of a family struggling with mental illness.  The source of the terror, be it severe psychological imbalance or something supernatural is the stuff of waking nightmares.  Evans creates a delicate poignancy that succeeds in extracting true empathy.  The reduction of a grown man into a scared little boy wearing his psyche like a borrowed suit of armor that's two sizes too big is quite disarming.   Evans is a strategy and business executive and resides in New York City.   This debut draws you in, tells you all, makes you care, yet keeps you guessing in the fashion of a classic novel and represents, without a doubt, the way the relationship between a novel and a reader ought to be.