The Good Son: A Novel

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Overview

“Rich and complex, The Good Son is a compelling novel about the aftermath of a crime in a small, close-knit community.”—Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard comes the gripping, emotionally charged novel of a mother who must help her son after he is convicted of a devastating crime.

What do you do when the person you love best becomes unrecognizable to you? For Thea Demetriou, the answer is both simple and agonizing: you keep loving him somehow.

Stefan was just seventeen when he went to prison for the drug-fueled murder of his girlfriend, Belinda. Three years later, he’s released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda’s mother, once Thea’s good friend, galvanizes the community to rally against him to protest in her daughter’s memory. The media paints Stefan as a symbol of white privilege and indifferent justice. Neighbors, employers, even some members of Thea's own family turn away.

Meanwhile Thea struggles to understand her son. At times, he is still the sweet boy he has always been; at others, he is a young man tormented by guilt and almost broken by his time in prison. But as his efforts to make amends meet escalating resistance and threats, Thea suspects more forces are at play than just community outrage. And if there is so much she never knew about her own son, what other secrets has she yet to uncover—especially about the night Belinda died?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778311799
Publisher:	MIRA Books
Publication date:	01/18/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	24,223
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels for adults, seven novels for teenagers, and five children’s books. These include The Deep End of the Ocean, the inaugural selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. She is also a professor of creative writing whose short stories, articles, essays and book reviews have been widely published. A native of Chicago, she now lives on Cape Cod with her family.

Hometown:

Madison, Wisconsin

Place of Birth:

Chicago, Illinois

Education:

B.A. in English, Rockford College, 1973

Website:

http://www.jacquelynmitchard.com

Editorial Reviews

The Good Son

"Rich and complex, The Good Son is a compelling novel about the aftermath of a crime in a small, close-knit community.”
—Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“This novel, about a family and a community wracked by grief, regret, and rage over the murder of a teenage girl, is gripping, heart-rending, and quietly devastating.”
--Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"The Good Son is very good indeed. This artfully-written novel begins by asking deep family questions about how we can accept the worst about those we love—and then, unexpectedly, turns into a galloping thriller. A remarkable book.”
—Scott Turow, New York Times bestselling author

“Rooted in compassion and curiosity, The Good Son is an engrossing story about forgiveness, redemption, and unconditional love.”
—Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice and Remember.

“Tender, poignant and impossible to put down... I was hooked from the very first sentence.”—Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee

“Not since THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN has Mitchard so profoundly examined the layered motherhood narrative. THE GOOD SON is timely, gripping, suspenseful, and resonant. Mitchard’s best yet by far.”
--Karin Slaughter, New York Times Bestselling Author

“Propulsive, complex and deeply moving, THE GOOD SON may well be Mitchard's finest work yet. I loved this book!”
– Karen Dionne, author of the #1 international bestseller The Marsh King's Daughter and The Wicked Sister


"An engaging journey through redemption, forgiveness, and a mother’s devotion."--Library Journal

"An emotionally intense drama of guilt, forgiveness, and motherhood."—Kirkus

The Deep End of the Ocean, #1 New York Times Bestseller

“A wrenching first novel.…wonderfully written.”—The New York Times Book Review


"A bold, brilliant, powerhouse of a novel. I read it in one sitting, unable to walk away until I'd come to the startling and unexpected end." —Kristin Hannah, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Four Winds

NoTime to Wave Goodbye

"Gripping, suspenseful and downright good; a beautiful reminder of why the world loves Jacquelyn Mitchard." —Karin Slaughter, New York Times Bestselling Author

Second Nature

“Timely…provocative….[Mitchard’s] distinctive voice is strong throughout....Her latest will not disappoint.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Mitchard’s latest ought to come with a warning: make no immediate plans, because this book will take over your life... A high-profile novel destined to galvanize fans and new readers alike." —Booklist, starred review

“There’s a newsy urgency to this story.” —Chicago Tribune


“Mitchard returns with another heartbreaker.” —Library Journal

Two If By Sea


“Suspenseful...nearly impossible to put down.” —People

"Soulful and emotionally arresting, Mitchard masterfully mines the place where catastrophic loss meets near-impossible hope and healing... This book will open your mind and heart in equal measures." —Paula McLain, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Paris Wife

"A thoughtful, sweeping read."—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Time

“A troubled protagonist, beset by disaster and malefaction, is touched by magic.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

11/01/2021

Best-seller Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean, the inaugural pick for Oprah's book club) sets the tone for her suspenseful new novel with its opening line: "I was picking my son up at the prison gates when I spotted the mother of the girl he had murdered." Thea tells the story, past and present, of her son Stefan and how he killed his beloved girlfriend Belinda. Belinda's mother, Jill, had been a close friend of Thea's, until the murder shattered multiple lives. As Stefan and Thea try to move forward, they're hassled by violent protestors and viciously stalked. The novel takes on a tinge of mystery when Thea starts getting strange phone calls from a young woman who "knows everything" about the night of the murder and says to tell Stefan "I'm sorry." Who is this caller, and what does she know? And what happened that awful night? Mitchard's emotional yet precise writing sets readers firmly in the story, amid the Wisconsin weather and the characters, from Thea's calm football coach husband to her not-so-sympathetic colleagues at the university where she teaches. VERDICT An engaging journey through redemption, forgiveness, and a mother's devotion.—Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

Library Journal

2021-10-13
The end of her son's prison sentence is the beginning of a new nightmare for the mother of a murderer.

"Before Belinda died, not much in my life had prepared me for anything except moderate good fortune." A college professor married to a popular football coach with a large network of loving family and friends, Thea Demetriou was living a good life until her luck ran out in a dramatic way three years ago, when her 17-year-old son, Stefan, a boy who had barely swatted a fly, murdered his longtime girlfriend, Belinda, in a drug-induced episode of psychosis. He remembers nothing about it, but he was the only one present, and his fingerprints were on the murder weapon. The scene Stefan comes home to is far from welcoming—picketers from an activist group founded by Belinda's mother, Jill, have already been gathering outside their house regularly to protest his release, and the harassment of the family by individuals and the media now escalates to the point that Thea is forced to take a sabbatical from her job. (Her academic focus is obsessed women in fiction, a detail with oddly unexplored potential.) If Stefan was just a regular guy before he went to prison, his tortuous experiences have made him into a near saint; he now conceives and undertakes a major project of good works in an attempt to give his ruined life meaning. Meanwhile, Thea begins receiving calls from someone who claims to have more information about the murder, but this plotline unfolds so slowly that it leaks rather than increases tension. Mitchard is an old pro at domestic fiction—the characters, the dialogue, the insights are all as strong as you'd expect—but most readers will figure out who the stalker is a hundred pages before Thea does. And as heavily overdetermined as it is, the final reveal could have been better set up.

An emotionally intense drama of guilt, forgiveness, and motherhood marred by an unfortunate pacing problem.

Kirkus Reviews