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The Good People Paperback – July 10, 2018

by Hannah Kent (Author)

3.9 4,621 ratings

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From the author of Burial Rites, "a literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller that takes us on a frightening journey towards an unspeakable tragedy" (Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water).

Based on true events in nineteenth century Ireland, Hannah Kent's startling new novel tells the story of three women, drawn together to rescue a child from a superstitious community.

Nora, bereft after the death of her husband, finds herself alone and caring for her grandson Micheal, who can neither speak nor walk. A handmaid, Mary, arrives to help Nora just as rumors begin to spread that Micheal is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley. Determined to banish evil, Nora and Mary enlist the help of Nance, an elderly wanderer who understands the magic of the old ways.

Set in a lost world bound by its own laws, The Good People is Hannah Kent's startling new novel about absolute belief and devoted love. Terrifying, thrilling and moving in equal measure, this follow-up to Burial Rites shows an author at the height of her powers.

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Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Back Bay Books
Publication date

July 10, 2018
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.13 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0316243957
ISBN-13

978-0316243957
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

About the Author

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. Her first novel, Burial Rites, has been translated into nearly thirty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the Guardian First Book Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Hannah is also the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. The Good People is her second novel.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (July 10, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316243957
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316243957
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.13 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #985,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42,517 in Suspense Thrillers
- #44,687 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #63,514 in Historical Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 4,621 ratings

About the author

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Hannah Kent

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Hannah Kent’s first novel, the international bestseller, BURIAL RITES, was translated into over 30 languages and won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the Prix Critiqueslibres Découvrir Étranger, the Booktopia People’s Choice Award, the ABA Nielsen Bookdata Booksellers’ Choice Award and the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, the Stella Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, amongst others. It is currently being adapted for film by Sony TriStar.

Hannah’s second novel, THE GOOD PEOPLE, was translated into 10 languages and shortlisted for the Walter Scott Award for Historical Fiction, the Indie Books Award for Literary Fiction, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. It is currently being adapted for film by Aquarius Productions.

DEVOTION, Hannah's third novel, will be published in November 2021 (Australia) and February 2022 (UK & Ireland) by Picador.

Hannah’s original feature film, Run Rabbit Run, will be directed by Daina Reid (The Handmaid’s Tale) and produced by Carver and XYZ Films. It was launched at the Cannes 2020 virtual market where STX Entertainment took world rights.

Hannah co-founded the Australian literary publication Kill Your Darlings. She has written for The New York Times, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, Qantas Magazine and LitHub.

Hannah lives and works on Peramangk country near Adelaide, Australia.

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3.9 out of 5

4,621 global ratings

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An Irish Fairy-tale

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2017

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This is a fairytale - a tale of fairies - but unlike any I've ever read before. In early 19th century Ireland, fairies are to be fearfully respected. They are malicious and mischievous. They dry up the cows' milk, stop the hens from laying, cause miscarriages and sometimes they abduct people and swap the person for one of their own. When this happens, the fairy left behind in the body of a person, is called a changeling. Every woman in rural Ireland at this time knew all the little things that needed to be done to protect their kin from the fairies. In her Author Notes, Hannah Kent says In writing this work of fiction I have sought to portray fairy and folk belief as part of the fabric of everyday rural nineteenth-century Irish life, rather than as anomalous.

So this is the world of Nora Leahy, widowed on page 1, and left alone to care for her grandson. At four years of age, he's not the same boy he had been two years earlier - no longer able to speak, to walk, to feed himself, or even to love. There is something wrong with him.

Like her debut novel Burial Rites, Hannah Kent's The Good People is built around an actual, documented historical event. In fact there are many similarities between the two stories. Where I thought the two books were different is that in Burial Rites there was just one central, unfortunate character whose fate I became invested in, whereas in The Good People there are three. I could only care for Nora, Nance and Mary one-third as much as I did for Agnes, and that's why, although I really liked The Good People, it's not going straight onto my Favourites shelf to sit beside Burial Rites.

Having said that, if you loved Burial Rites, you will enjoy this book too.

4 people found this helpful

josephine briggs

OF HERBS AND HEALING, DIFFERENT WAYS OF HEALING

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2017

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The fairies are called the good people. It is not good to anger and vex these tiny creatures. The good people can get even with those who do. They are called the good people, folks try to appease them, it is wise to stay on their good sides.

The book begins with Nora Leahy whose husband dies suddenly. Martin had been in good health, so everyone thought. Possible a heart attact. These characters were poor, could not afford doctors.

I ordered this book because I read "Burial Rites" and liked the story. This book, in a way, is a little like "Burial Rites." There is an herb woman who uses herbs to cure, the characters are poor, the book is set in nature, both contain beautiful writings set in the natural world. This book goes deep into another world, an unseen world, superstitions. The church is trying to get members away from beliefs in fairies and superstitions. But beliefs hang on, will not go away. Ms Kent did much research in writings about beliefs in fairies and the ways people are punished for consorting with these tiny creatures. The book's time is in 1825-1826 approximately the time as "Burial Rites." She visited the area where the story is set in order to portray the environment. And excellent is her word paintings of the world of nature. This is a beautifully written book, but sad. People died too young in those days, too much poverty, people couldn't read and write, but this all still happens today.

The three main characters, Nora Leahy, widowed is left to care for her four year old grandson, Michael. Michael is a sick boy, his mother, Johanna, is dead. When he was two he was perfect, but he reverted back to infancy. He screams and cries, shrieks, can't walk. He is much worse than a newborn. His grandmother is worn out caring for this boy. He is a changeling, the fairies have stolen away her perfect grandchild and given her this. There is a disease that babies grow at a usual rate, then revert back to being helpless. Nance, the herb woman, is a genius in curing sicknesses. She has worked in herbs, different types for different cures, since she was young. She is a natural healer in caring for those who can't afford doctors and probably better than some doctors. She is called to chase away the fairy from Michael, to bring this boy back to himself, the wonderful child he had once been. Into the picture, comes Mary, a teenager, she doesn't quite know her age. She has gone into service to help her family of too many children. She is to take care of Michael, at first she is frightened by him, but comes to love him.

Michael is hidden away, a fairy child, who characters feel is responsible for what is gone wrong in the land. Cows not giving enough milk, hens not laying enough eggs. crops not doing well.

Michael has those who take up for him, Mary and an elderly neighbor, Peg O'Shea. Both get angry at Nora and Nance for the torture they put Michael through to frighten the fairy out of him.

Nance, who characters feel consorts with the fairies, feel that she is another reason everything in the area is going wrong The church is trying to do away with superstitions. The new priest, Father Healy is angry at these beliefs. And he is angry with Nance,an elderly lady, and wants her to stop using her herbs to heal.

8 people found this helpful

A writer to watch!

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2016

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This is very good writing and, I thought, less particularly bitter than her earlier book, 'Burial Rites'. Kent composes beautiful sentences and many are filled with jewels of poetry - lovely suscinct observation with assonance, onomatopoeia, alliteration. Unfortunately the particular bits of poetry do not feed a missing overriding metaphor through which. usually, a novel turns. To that extent rather than being a novel, Kent’s book is more a journalistic piece, or a history – a very sympathetic history and very good journalism at that. I loved her detail in drilling down into the mores of the daily lives of rural 1820’s Ireland strained as it was at that time and in that place with the severe superstition of a straightened Christianity and that seeing itself as superior to the ancient wisdoms and rational of old superstitions. The poor people – poor in wealth, health and general wherewith all and foot wear, and ignorant of the knowledge of letters and rational thought were as caught as there forebears were in poverty. The book doesn’t push through any of those straightened superstitions to any hope of wisdom or dignity. The stern barrier of the priest’s male-ness and ignorance of humanity isn’t breached. But, where to go with that in any case? This story unfolds in the shadow of what we descendants of the Irish, who live well and educated in distant British colonies, know. The potato famine and mass starvation death is only a few years hence and things only got worse for the Irish.

I will follow this writer. She is going to be one of the greats one day - she just need to puncture the seemingly pertinacious ego and assurance ofthe male of our species. -- Dorothy - unmask that green wizard!

3 people found this helpful

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E A James

A brilliant read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2022

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I read Hannah Kent’s first book Burial Rites and loved it. I decided that I would give the Good People a go.
It is a well researched and well written novel. I loved the story and I liked the main female characters - especially Nance.
The depiction of poverty in Ireland in the 1820’s is very good and looking at Irish folklore is interesting. What I learnt after reading this is that these people may be poor but they are not ignorant people. They are are people who have a strong belief system and we have to try and understand how they see things.
This novel got me thinking about things and will stay with me for quite a while.
I believe that everyone should read Hannah Kent.
Enjoy!

One person found this helpful

Fuchs Joan

Beengend

Reviewed in Germany on July 1, 2019

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Nicht ganz so top wie das erste Buch der Autorin, aber dennoch eine beengende Geschichte um Aberglaube und Einsamkeit. Ungläubig folgt man der Geschichte bis zum bitteren Ende. Spannend geschrieben, sehr atmosphärisch, sehr stimmig. 4.8 Sterne.

One person found this helpful

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Silviah Colombara

Capolavoro 2.0 ( dopo Burial rites)

Reviewed in Italy on January 15, 2019

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Subito dopo aver letto Burial rites mi sono precipitata a vedere se Hannah Kent avesse pubblicato altro, così ho comprato The good people. La sua capacità di creare un mondo intero a partire da un fatto di cronaca tardo ottocentesca è incredibile. La storia è molto cruda, la Kent non si risparmia sul realismo del racconto; sono rimasta spesso senza parole leggendola. Questo suo secondo libro è un viaggio vero e proprio, come lo era stato il primo. Scrittura eccelsa, immagini che persistono, personaggi con uno spessore spaventoso. Non vedo l'ora che scriva qualcosa di nuovo perchè sono curiosa di scoprire quale altra avventura potrò vivere grazie al suo talento.

One person found this helpful

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lectrice anglophone

Truly a Gem

Reviewed in France on December 10, 2017

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I was completely carried away by the beauty of Hannah Kent's second novel. Based like "Burial Rites" on true events, we are now in rural Ireland before the Famine where people's lives and their beliefs seem so very far removed from what we know today. The beginning of the novel and the stage is set. A ploughman, "eyes red-rimmed in their sockets" and a blacksmith, "his forearms star-speckled from ironwork" carry the body of Martin Leahy back to his wife Nora. He has just collapsed at a crossroads "hand on his chest like a man taking an oath". What happens next concerns their four-year-old grandson who suffers from some sort of neurological disease, cannot speak or walk and whose body is covered with bed sores. Nora comes to believe that the unfortunate child is not their own but a changeling left by the fairies or Good People when they "swept away" the real child. She is spurred along in her beliefs by Nance Roche who cures with plants and has the "knowledge". Young Mary Clifford, (for me the most moving character in the novel) is hired at a fair to look after the stricken child. This is a harsh tale, certainly not an easy read but what a rewarding one !
Hannah Kent's use of language is absolutely masterful. What poetry in its descriptions ! Nance in a forest setting: ""the morning rain left the moss vivid underfoot, and the leaves cast their dappled shadow on the clay and stone and leaf. Birds rustled the berried briar. The sight of the forest floor carpeted with the beetled backs of acorns had rushed her with happiness." As for the Romantic Poets, pleasure and the other side of the same coin, terror. "She choked with fear till piss ran down her leg."
Her analysis of the psychology of her characters is both subtle and deep. When Mary Clifford thinks "There was no telling the shape of a heart from the face of the one who carried it" we think Shakespeare, Macbeth Act I scene 4 "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face."

3 people found this helpful

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Sophie ❤️

These are not tooth fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Reviewed in Australia on May 22, 2017

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This was my first look at Hannah Kent, as I decided that her first book Burial Rites was going to be too grim for my book group. Well, it appears one of my book group ladies thought this would be a good read for this months book group. Grim reading it was. I am in two minds as to how I feel about this book.

On the one hand the topic of fairy lore was fascinating but the setting in rural Ireland in the early 1800s was never going to be an easy or delightful read. Add to that we get, deaths, a disabled child, hunger, poverty, cold, homesickness, child labour, poor health conditions, wife beatings, superstition and the wrath of the church, well you get the picture. This is not a book you would be choosing for reading on a summer holiday at the beach. It is more suited to the cold harshness of winter, when you can snuggle down in front of the fire.

Over all, there is a sense of doom that hangs over these characters. Kent paints us a picture of life for women without men trying to survive a harsh life. Nora loses her husband not long after their daughter has died and they are coping with raising a disabled four year old in a tiny village on the side of an mountain where the old ways are deeply imbedded. She enlists the help on a young girl, Mary to take care of Michael. But grief sets in and Nora finds it increasingly hard to cope with the villagers suspicions that Michael is one of Them, a changling.

Nance the local " handy woman" sets her mind to helping her drive the fairies out of him and allow the real Michael to return from being swept away by Them, the Good People. Can Nances herbs and potions cure Michael? As with small villages everyone has something to say. For all the grimness of this era we still see the goodness and certainly plenty of evil that a small community has. Surprisingly a positive note can be taken by the end of the story.

I feel the story lost its way some what towards the middle of the story, often repeating it self. Perhaps we could have gotten to the climax sooner. I found that I was sometimes getting confused with the lesser characters as there we many side stories. I loved young Mary and could never imagine living her life or sending my children out to work at such an age. But it was a different era and it was more than likely you would be dead before forty.

For the most part I found the book to be interesting and thankful that I was born when I was. Let's call it an educational read rather than enjoyable.

5 people found this helpful

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