From the author of A Place at the Table and A Soft Place to Land, a gripping, multigenerational story inspired by true events that follows two best friends through their political awakenings in the turbulent 1960s–and the repercussions of their actions after their daughters encounter the secrets they thought they had buried long ago. Eve Whalen, privileged child of an old-money Atlanta family, … child of an old-money Atlanta family, meets Daniella Strum in the fall of 1962, on their first day at Belmont College. Paired as roommates, the two become fast friends. Daniella, raised in Georgetown by a Jewish father and a Methodist mother, has always felt caught between two worlds. But at Belmont, her bond with Eve allows her to finally experience a sense of belonging. That is, until the girls’ expanding awareness of the South’s caste system forces them to question everything they thought they knew about the world and their places in it.
Eve veers toward radicalism–a choice pragmatic Daniella cannot fathom. After a tragedy, Eve returns to Daniella for help in beginning anew, hoping to shed her past. But the past isn’t so easily buried, as Daniella and Eve discover when their daughters are caught up in secrets meant to stay hidden.
Spanning thirty years of American history, from the twilight of Kennedy’s Camelot to the days leading up to Bill Clinton’s election, We Are All Good People Here perfectly resonates with today’s fraught American political zeitgeist and asks us: why do good intentions too often lead to tragic outcomes? Can we separate our political choices and our personal morals? And is it possible to truly bury our former selves and escape our own history?more
In Susan Rebecca White’s gem of a novel, she weaves together a captivating story of two women who forge a bond as teenagers in the ’60s and carry that friendship through a lifetime of social and personal change. This is a meaningful, resonant story about the resilience of friendship, and an artful portrayal of the reckoning when two women’s–as well as an entire country’s–past finally meets the present. I loved this book.
How do we change society? Can we change society? Who are the ‘good people’ and can ‘good people’ do bad things for the right reason and still be ‘good’? Can people really change?
I was interested in the questions posed by the novel.
The story begins in the early 1960s when two girls meet in a private women’s college in the South and become best friends. Their rising awareness of social racism makes them question the values of their society. Decisions are made that take them in different directions. One girl works within the system while accepting the social expectations for a rising female lawyer. The other girl follows a charismatic radical into ever more violent protests and when she has lost everything she seeks out her old friend to help her return to society.
The novel is filled with historical detail and events. Medgar Evans and Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Dylan and Dr. Strangelove, the murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, “Hey! Hey! LBJ how many kids did you kill today” are mentioned.
It was very hard to follow Eve into the very dark place she ends up in. I nearly set the book aside as her life became quite disturbing. But I did pick it back up.
Babe, you opted out of a normal life a long time ago.~ from We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White
Can we keep our pasts a secret? Can we completely change? In the end, Eve became the very person she had sought to avoid becoming. And yet–she still needed a man to guide her. Daniella may have ‘sold out’ and but she gives it up for important work that better fits her values.
I spent many years not thinking about the 1960s. The cultural and political changes that were the background of my teen years were too depressing to remember.
In 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated I was in Sixth Grade. By the time I graduated from high school in 1970 I had seen the murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the Viet Nam body count on the daily news, and the rise of the anti-war movement and hippie counter culture. Music went from I Want To Hold Your Hand to Sympathy for the Devil. The elegant full-skirted dresses became sheaths became Mod became Psychedelic became bare feet, bell bottom jeans, and T-shirts. Green Beret pins became iron crosses became Give Earth a Chance pinback buttons. The 1967 Detroit Riots happened a few miles down the road.
I was just trying to grow up, figuring out who I was, and the whole world was telling me to look elsewhere because things of real importance were going on. I resented that. I wanted to be allowed to just deal with my own stuff. Instead, I joined the Political Action Club and read the Detroit Free Press, Newsweek and Time instead of Seventeen.
But I never strayed from my core values. I knew who I was and what I wanted for myself. I felt that the character Eve lacked that internal compass.
Warren St. Clair was a charismatic and idealistic man who is also misogynistic and self-absorbed. Eve knows his reputation, but can’t resist him, following him from place to place. When Warren escalates to violence against the system, Eve follows him underground.
Meanwhile, Daniella marries a ‘reformed’ Republican, a good man who believes that social change happens slowly. Daniella pushes the envelope as a lawyer, working twice as hard to break into the old-boy network.
Justice does not simply show up on it own, gliding in on the wings of platitudes and the promise of prayers. ~from We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca Smith
In mid-age, both women shift, the radical Eva embracing safety and surety and marriage that brings prosperity, and the widowed conformist Daniella chucking it all for non-profit work helping men on death row.
The book could have ended here, but instead, we see how the women’s decisions impact the next generation.
Eve and Danilla each have a daughter. Eve’s daughter Anna has everything and more, dressing in Laura Ashley clothing and driving a new car. Daniella is financially well off, too, but she insists on a lifestyle in keeping with her values. Used clothing, no conspicuous consumption.
Daniella works and Eve is a housewife, so Daniella leaves her daughter Sarah with ‘Aunt Eve’ under the care of the maid. Sarah is envious of Anna’s life and she worries that her mom is economically insecure.
Eve has a secret that is exposed. When Anna has learned the truth about her mother, it creates a rift.
There is an interesting theme on religion through the novel that is not central to the plot but takes enough space to show the author’s concern.
Early in the novel Eve and Warren St. Clair and have a discussion about the value of the church in society. Warren believes the cathedral is a waste of space better used for affordable housing. Eve thinks there is nothing more useful than a church. Warren mentions the German Lutheran Church was complicit with the Nazis, and Eve retorts, not Bonhoeffer’s church. Sure, Warren replies. But Bonhoeffer was executed by the state which proves the church either is complicit or martyrs.
Near the end of the novel Daniella and her daughter Sarah have a talk about religion. Eve has joined a right-wing evangelical church led by a charismatic preacher–still drawn to those charismatic men.
Sarah asks Daniella, what if one must hit ‘rock bottom’ to be saved? Daniella believes in the social gospel, God’s will for “the reconciliation of all people” as opposed to God daming some and saving others.
But Sarah understands that her Aunt Eve is searching for stability and family. Daniella only sees that Eve jumps from one “dogma” to another.
Again, a juxtaposition between two choices arises. Is changing the world better than saving souls? Do we need to become completely powerlessness before we can accept God? Is doing justice and showing mercy the mark of walking humbly with one’s God?
The book is summed up in one sentence:
We are all good people here, all trying to muddle through this the best we can. ~from We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley.
White’s fascinating window into history held me spellbound, watching two privileged sorority girls run headlong into the brutal history of America’s civil rights movement. This is a book with serious scope and vision, people by characters so flawed and human you can almost hear them breathing. White understands the ways that the past remains alive inside the present; she uses the intensely personal story of how a mother’s choices haunt her child to light up all the ways in which our own country remains haunted by its past. White never shies away from the hard questions, but she also never loses compassion for her flawed, fully-fleshed, oh-so-human characters. Intense, complex, and wholly immersive, WE ARE ALL GOOD PEOPLE HERE is an engrossing tale told by a writer who combines rare empathy with an exquisite eye for detail. I was blown away.
Ms. White tells us that this was a hard novel to write. This was also a hard novel to read. It brings to light all the misinformation and naivety those of my generation brought with us into adulthood. This tale covers a timeframe of thirty years, between 1962, when Eve and Daniella meet on the first day of their college life at Belmont College, an all-girl school in the deep south. We follow these two very different ladies through their lives and choices, from the dawn of the Kennedy White House to Bill Clinton’s election. We live again through the growing pains of racial strife in the south, the pain of every step toward equality, the many miss-steps and regressions in that war, and the deep division of between the have and have-nots of any color. It hurts, to live it all again. And to see just how far we still have to go.
This is a novel I wish every person would read. Equality – of race, gender, sexual orientation – is an interesting buzz word. It is, even today, still looming for us way down the road of time.
I received a free electronic copy of this historical novel from Netgalley, Susan Rebecca White, and Atria Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
We Are All Good People Here was an interesting read. I usually don’t like books that follow characters over the decades. Often, I find myself getting confused with what is going on and losing track of the plotline. Not in this book. We Are All Good People Here was an interesting, character-driven book that had me engrossed the entire time.
What I liked the most about this book was how the characters changed with each decade. Each decade showed a different side to Eve and Daniella. I enjoyed seeing the different sides of Eve and Daniella. I liked seeing how they related to each other in those periods of their lives. I loved seeing how their friendship evolved during the 30+ years the book covers. It made for a fantastic read.
I liked how the author had Eve and Daniella be on opposite ends of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War protests. It was interesting to read about Daniella’s time in Mississippi. I was interested in how Eve was immersed in a radical group. It fascinated me.
We Are All Good People Here covers so much that this review would be forever if I wrote about them all. Racism and discrimination were two of the main things discussed. Also discussed where same-sex couples, date rape, drug use, and radicalism. All these issues combined into one book made for a great read.
What I didn’t like was how Eve changed. It didn’t sit right with me. She was immersed in the culture of the underground radicals. So, for her to marry a lawyer and become a “perfect” wife was a hard pill to swallow.
I wasn’t a fan of Eve and Daniella’s kids taking over the book. But, I understood why the author did that. She wanted to introduce the issues that my generation had to deal with growing up.
The end of We Are All Good People Here was almost anticlimactic. I figured that Eve would end up doing what she did. Daniella, I didn’t expect her life to take the course that it did. It was an excellent ending to a great story. The talk that Daniella and Sarah had at the end of the book touched me.