"Ms. Kent has a knack for conjuring the unsettled spirit world through deft stylistic flourishes...THE GOOD PEOPLE is far from a high-handed condemnation of superstitious belief. It makes the terrors of the past feel palpable and imminent. It makes you reach for whatever good luck charms you carry with you."—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
"Rural pre-famine Ireland in all its beauty and desolation is alive on every page of this exquisite novel...'The Good People' is a dramatic tale of desperation, set in a bleak time and place when no amount of protective ritual and belief - or goodness - can rescue people from their circumstances."—Katherine Weber, The New York Times Book Review
"Kent's suspenseful storytelling plunges readers into early 19th-century Ireland. She brings vivid life to the hardscrabble scenes...Although 'The Good People' is fiction, it faithfully represents the hold of ancient Celtic myths on generations of Irish."—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Add Kent to the list of terrific Australian novelists writing today. While Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies) mines modern marriage and mores for her page-turning mysteries, Kent (Burial Rites) goes back in time to find reality-based stories of women who pay the price for challenging society's expectations. The Good People has great characters, a setting that seeps into your bones and the always compelling tug between the spiritual and the superstitious."—USA Today (starred review)
"If Stevie Wonder is correct, when you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer. Kent's novel validates his indictment of superstition."—Kirkus
"Kent skillfully depicts a world where anything outside the norm falls under suspicion, particularly women who are not under the protection of a man."—Library Journal
Faith, folk-knowledge, and fear coalesce in remote 19th-century Ireland in this second novel from Kent...Though rife with description, backstory, and a surfeit of gossip, the book's pervasive sense of foreboding and clear narrative arcs keep the tale immersive. Kent leads the reader on a rocky, disquieting journey to the misty crossroads of Irish folk beliefs past and future.—Publisher's Weekly
"Kent brings her talent for writing dark and atmospheric historical fiction to this tale set in rural Ireland in 1825... Kent's immersive setting, benefiting from impressive historical research and the use of Gaelic vocabulary, features both a dramatically alive natural world and a believably fearsome supernatural one. Inspired by true events and exploring those places where reason, religion, and superstition cross paths, this will please lovers of haunting literary fiction. "—Booklist
"Kent has a terrific feel for the language of her setting..This is a serious and compelling novel about those in desperate circumstances cling to ritual as a bulwark against their own powerlessness."—The Guardian
"Taking its inspiration from newspaper reports of a real court case in County Kerry in 1826, THE GOOD PEOPLE is an even better novel than Burial Rites-a starkly realized tale of love, grief and misconceived beliefs."—The Sunday Times UK
"Kent has a wonderful talent for taking fragments of historical facts and breathing life into them through her fiction. She has matched her debut with another disturbing and haunting novel."—Sunday Herald
"The novel is thrillingly alive to the dynamic of poor, close-knit communities, where fear of the outsider trumps reason and compassion."—Metro
"An intricate, heartbreaking portrayal of three women and the conflict between religious belief and folklore."—Stylist
"An imaginative tour-de-force that recreates a way of perceiving the world with extraordinary vividness...With its exquisite prose, this harrowing, haunting narrative of love and suffering is sure to be a prize-winner."
—Daily Mail
"Lyrical and unsettling, THE GOOD PEOPLE is a vivid account of the contradictions of life in rural Ireland in the 19th century. A literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller, Hannah Kent takes us on a frightening journey towards an unspeakable tragedy. I am in awe of Kent's gifts as a storyteller."—Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
"THE GOOD PEOPLE is, like Burial Rites, a thoroughly engrossing entrée into the macabre nature of a vanished society, its virtues and its follies and its lethal impulses. THE GOOD PEOPLE takes us straight to a place utterly unexpected and believable, where amidst the earnest mayhem people impose on each other, there is no patronizing quaintness, but a compelling sense of the inevitability of solemn horrors."—Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark and The Daughters of Mars
"Remarkable.... Kent displays an uncanny ability to immerse herself in an unfamiliar landscape and to give that landscape a life - a voice - that is utterly convincing.... A haunting novel, shrewdly conceived and beautifully written."—The Australian
"The Good People breathes life into the mythologies of Irish folklore. It unfolds the story of two women desperate to reclaim what little power they can over lives touched with hopelessness and despair in a changing time."—Shelf Awarness
07/01/2017
Set in an Irish village in the 1820s, Kent's harrowing second novel (after Burial Rites) immerses readers in a time and place where folk superstitions mingle with daily life. Though nominally Catholic, the village residents blame fairies, or "the Good People," when any misfortune strikes, be it a stillborn child or poor milk production. After Nóra Leahy's husband dies unexpectedly, she is left alone to care for her severely disabled grandson, Micheál. Nóra comes to believe that Micheál is a changeling, and with the help of her maid Mary and the local folk healer Nance Roche, imposes a series of increasingly cruel "cures" on Micheál. Kent skillfully depicts a world where anything outside the norm falls under suspicion, particularly women who are not under the protection of a man. To varying degrees, the three central women of the book represent this victimization, which helps bring sympathy to them, despite their terrible actions. VERDICT The lack of understanding of disability leads Micheál to be dehumanized, even by his own grandmother, and his treatment is painful to read. Nevertheless, this work is a worthy contribution to literary collections, particularly those at the intersection of feminism, religion, and folklore. [See Prepub Alert, 3/27/17.]—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Early-nineteenth-century Ireland is a world of superstition, poverty, and survival, a world that narrator Caroline Lennon describes in her strong Irish brogue. Nora finds herself caring for her 4-year-old grandchild, Michael, who doesn’t speak or walk. She’s helped by Mary, a young woman hired to work in the house and care for Michael, and Nance, a wise woman and a pagan who knows herbs and perhaps the ways of the good people. Lennon shifts from short phrases for the narrative, which is often a little stiff, to fluidly read the dialogue. The story unwinds slowly, forcing listeners to pay attention to the subtle details interspersed with quick glimpses of the good people, the elves, and other creatures of that place of which folktales are told. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
2017-07-04
A battle between belief systems in rural 19th-century Ireland forms the backdrop for Kent's (Burial Rites, 2013) unblinking examination of the corrosive costs of poverty and ignorance.Nóra Leahy becomes the object of gossip and speculation in the rural Irish valley she inhabits after the 1825 death of her laborer husband, Martin. Nóra's desperate attempts to hide from her neighbors the existence of the severely disabled grandson who came into her care after the death of his own mother—Nóra's beloved daughter, Johanna—soon come undone, and Micheál's presence in the valley becomes the focal point of the malignant attentions of her fellow valley-dwellers, who are seeking an answer and anodyne for a reversal in fortunes that has beset the area. Long-standing belief in the destructive powers of "the Good People," fairylike creatures whose motives and methods are the subject of endless speculation in Nóra's agrarian community, leads to hostility against Micheál, who is suspected of being a "changeling," substituted by the Good People in place of Nóra's actual grandson. Nóra's frantic efforts to recover the happy boy she comes to believe was spirited away by the Good People—who seem also to have visited new plagues and poverty on the valley—are aided by Nance, a grizzled, mysterious woman reputed to know the ways of the frequently malevolent beings, and Mary, a softhearted young household maid. A nerve-wracking series of efforts to banish the creature thought to be masquerading as Micheál illuminates the clash between traditional values and ways of life clung to in the valley and newly emerging beliefs in science—and perhaps a different brand of superstition—encouraged by clergy, the more educated, and residents of a nearby city that seems worlds away. Kent's well-researched tale is inspired by newspaper reports of an actual attempt in 19th-century Ireland to banish a changeling. Peppered with Gaelic words and phrases and frequent references to bygone beliefs and practices, this brutal telling of a brutal story invites discussion and revulsion. If Stevie Wonder is correct, when you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer. Kent's novel validates his indictment of superstition.
