We Are All Good People Here: A Novel

Susan Rebecca White

Aug 2019 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

From the author of A Place at the Table and A Soft Place to Land, an “intense, complex, and wholly immersive” (Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author) multigenerational novel that explores the complex relationship between two very different women and the secrets they bequeath to their daughters.

Eve Whalen, privileged child of an old-money Atlanta family, meets Daniella Gold 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 systematic injustice 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 endangered by secrets meant to stay hidden.

Spanning more than thirty years of American history, from the twilight of Kennedy’s Camelot to the beginning of Bill Clinton’s presidency, We Are All Good People Here is “a captivating…meaningful, resonant story” (Emily Giffin, author of All We Ever Wanted) about two flawed but well-meaning women clinging to a lifelong friendship that is tested by the rushing waters of history and their own good intentions.

Ratings and reviews

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.

About the author

Susan Rebecca White is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, Bound South, A Soft Place to Land, We Are All Good People Here, and A Place at the Table. A graduate of Brown University and the MFA program at Hollins University, Susan has taught creative writing at Hollins, Emory, SCAD, and Mercer University, where she was the Ferrol A. Sams, Jr. Distinguished Chair of English Writer-in-Residence. An Atlanta native, Susan lives in Atlanta with her husband and son.