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Goodhouse
Goodhouse
Mar 7, 2026 7:37 AM

Author:Peyton Marshall

Goodhouse

'Page-turning' KAREN JAY FOWLER

'Powerful NEW YORK TIMES

Goodhouse is not supposed to be a prison. Despite the guard dogs, the tracking devices, and the fact that the boys are mandated to attend and unable to leave, it’s supposed to be a second - and final -chance.

Across the country, sixty thousand boys are locked into Goodhouse campuses until they turn 18. What they all have in common are the genetic markers that indicate a predisposition towards violent and criminal behavior. Every lesson taught at Goodhouse is meant to be an honest effort to correct their inherent ‘wrong-thinking,’ to train them for a future when they might join the civilian world.

Goodhouse tells the story of James, a boy condemned to the system at the age of three. With no memory of his parents or even his real name, James thrives at the La Pine campus where he’s grown up, following the (many) rules, making friends, singing in the choir, all the while practicing ‘right-thinking’- until the school is violently attacked by Zeros, a group of people who think Goodhouse boys should simply be eliminated, much like rabid dogs.

James is the only survivor. Traumatised, he is transferred to a larger and more terrifying school. There he realizes that whatever its intentions, the Goodhouse system has created a culture of good-seeming boys that aspire to do wrong, to be the meanest and strongest no matter the stakes. A morning beating is more common than a decent breakfast; the boys are used as guinea pigs to test dangerous new drugs; some disappear without warning, never to be seen again.

Goodhouse has come to be a world that thrives on fear and division - where hatred and hopelessness are the heartbeat of a population on the verge of chaos. In order to survive, James must forge new alliances and break every rule he’s been conditioned to follow for his entire life.

Reviews

A marvel - a glorious combination of page-turning literary thriller and challenging examination of freedom, destiny, and the thorny ideals of faith and science

—— Eleanor Brown, NYT-bestselling author of THE WEIRD SISTERS

GOODHOUSE is thrilling and wonderful and dark

—— Mark Childress, author of CRAZY IN ALABAMA

A page-turning account of one boy's journey through a vivid and dangerous world.

—— Karen Joy Fowler, author of WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES

Peyton Marshall's debut is a page-turner of the highest order, the kind of book you don't want to finish but cannot stop reading.

—— James Scott, author of The Kept

This is one of the most intellectually thrilling and beautifully unsettling novels I've read in years.

—— Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This and Corpus Christi

Like Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Goodhouse is a gripping excursion to a vividly imagined and profoundly disturbing future. Peyton Marshall has written an unforgettable first novel, a work of striking originality, empathy and skill.

—— Jennifer Haigh, author of Faith

Goodhouse is a debut of extraordinary power and vision, and Peyton Marshall is a new voice for the ages.

—— Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth

Goodhouse grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground and held me suspended there until its final sentence. Then the book began its real work on me: haunting my waking thoughts, invading my dreams. (...) This is an astonishing novel.

—— Antoine Wilson, author of Panorama City, and The Interloper

Magnificently written ...powerful

—— New York Times Book Review

A fantastic cautionary tale that will leave you muttering "one more chapter" as the night stretches on. We highly recommend it

—— SciFiNow

Minority Report meets Never Let Me Go

—— SFX

A terrifying, yet grimly realistic portrait of near-future America

—— Brechin Advertiser

Thought-provoking, and at times brutal, this thriller will surely be the basis of many discussions about the nature of society and the times we live in

—— Irish Examiner

Peyton Marshall is a writer of intelligence and keen observation with a great future. GOODHOUSE is a startling debut. In James, she has created a compelling and convincing hero for the all-too-probable dark times ahead

—— A L KENNEDY

An eerie, compelling novel, its deceptively simple language is a 'slight rush of words' which hold much more than they seem capable of containing...This novel is about the need to create a story we can live with when the real story cannot be told...

—— Financial Times

Strout uses a different voice herself in this novel: a spare simple one, elegiac in tone that sometimes brings to mind Joan Didion's

—— The Tablet

This is a glorious novel, deft, tender and true. Read it

—— Sunday Telegraph

An exquisitely written story...a brutally honest, absorbing and emotive read

—— Catholic Universe

Honest, intimate and ultimately unforgettable

—— Stylist

Sympathetic, subtle and sometimes shocking

—— Emma Healey

Plain and beautiful...Strout writes with an extraordinary tenderness and restraint

—— Kate Summerscale

One of this year's best novels: an intense, beautiful book about a mother and a daughter, and the difficulty and ambivalence of family life

—— Marcel Theroux

Elizabeth Strout's prose is like words doing jazz

—— Rachel Joyce

Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge is the best novel I've read for some time

—— David Nicholls

An exquisite novel of careful words and vibrating silences

—— New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2016

In this quiet, well observed novel, a mother and her mysteriously ill daughter rebuild their relationship in a New York hospital room. Deft and tender, it lingers in the mind

—— Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

A worthy follow-up to Olive Kitteridge

—— David Nicholls , Guardian Books of the Year

I loved My Name is Lucy Barton: she gets better with each book

—— Maggie O'Farrell , Guardian Books of the Year

The standout novel of the year - a visceral account of the relations between mother and daughter and the unreliability of memory

—— Linda Grant , Guardian Books of the Year

In a brilliant year for fiction, I've admired the nuanced restraint of Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton

—— Hilary Mantel , Guardian Books of the Year

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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