Thirty-year-old George Davies cant bring himself to hold his newborn son. After months of accepting his lame excuses and strange behavior, his wife has had enough. She demands that he see a therapist, and George, desperate to save his unraveling marriage and redeem himself as a father and husband, reluctantly agrees. As he delves into his childhood memories, he begins to recall things he hasnt thought of in twenty years. Events, people, and strange situations come rushing back. The odd, rambling letters his father sent home before he died. The jovial mother who started dating too soon after his fathers death. A boy who appeared one night when George was lonely, then told him secrets he didnt want to know. How no one believed this new friend was real and that he was responsible for the bad things that were happening. Terrified by all that he has forgotten, George struggles to remember what really happened in the months following his fathers death. Were his ominous visions and erratic behavior the product of a grief-stricken childs overactive imagination (a perfectly natural reaction to the trauma of loss, as his mother insisted)? Or were his fathers colleagues, who blamed a darker, more malevolent force, right to look to the supernatural as a means to end Georges suffering? Twenty years later, George still does not know. But when a mysterious murder is revealed, remembering the past becomes the only way George can protect himselfand his young family.A psychological thriller in the tradition of Donna Tartts The Secret Historywith shades of The Exorcistthe smart and suspenseful A Good and Happy Child leaves you questioning the things you remember and frightened of the things youve forgotten.From the Hardcover edition.