18 July 2007

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans


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.

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