A Good and Happy Child

George Davies is in therapy because of his inability to handle his infant son. In most of the book, Mark Deakins narrates from George's perspective as he journals about his youth. Following his own father's sudden death, he found himself immersed in warring worlds of psychiatric and religious treatment as he plunged into a world of delusion or demonic possession. The calm, measured tones of the medical professionals portrayed by Deakins are in high contrast to the strong Southern and Midwestern accents of the believers who hope to exorcise the young George. This is scary stuff, made more powerful by Deakins's cagily balanced, straightforward delivery. D.P.D. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 12, 2007
This stunning novel marks the debut of a serious talent. Evans manages to take a familiar concept—the young child haunted by a demon invisible to others—and infuse it with psychological depth and riveting suspense. The setting alternates between George Davies's difficult childhood in Preston, Va., a small college town, after his father Paul's untimely death, and his equally challenging life as an adult and new father in New York City. Ostracized by his classmates and emotionally isolated by his mother, a struggling academic, young George begins to be visited by a doppelgänger, who, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, intimates that foul play was involved in Paul's death. When those visitations lead to violence, George begins receiving psychiatric treatment. Meanwhile, some of his late father's colleagues claim that demonic possession is a reality. Evans subtly evokes terror and anxiety with effective understatement. The intelligence and humanity of this thriller should help launch it onto bestseller lists.