The Best Kind of People

(Paperback)

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Description

What if your own husband was accused of sexual misconduct

'You will be left wondering just who George is, and indeed, who you are.' Irish News

For readers who were gripped by Megan Abbott's The Fever and Louise O'Neill's Asking For It .

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE is a page-turning Canadian bestseller about a family on the brink of collapse. It gives no easy answers, but once you stay up all night reading it, you'll want to talk about it with everyone you know.

For the past ten years, science teacher George Woodbury has been hailed a suburban hero.

But when his daughter Sadie turns 17, George is arrested for sexual misconduct with her own classmates, while his wife Joan looks on in shock.

As George awaits trial, his son Andrew, a lawyer in New York, returns home to help, only to confront his own unhappy memories.

How can the family defend the man they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt

Provocative and unforgettable, The Best Kind of People reveals the cracks along the seams of even the most perfect lives and the unraveling of an all-American family.

'Urgent and timely, nuanced and brave. This gripping story challenges how we hear women and girls, and dissects the self-hypnosis and fear that prevent us from speaking disruptive truth.' Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury

'Compelling story characters readers will recognize and come to love and writing that makes it effortless to turn page after page.' Vancouver Sun

Reviews

Whittall places the reader right at the centre of their pain. It's the best depiction of female suffering I've read since Jane Smiley eloquently tackled sexual abuse in A Thousand Acres. - Toronto Star

The Best Kind of People is the best kind of book it's got a compelling story characters readers will recognize and come to love and writing that makes it effortless to turn page after page. - Vancouver Sun

An astounding portrait of a character by omission. - National Post

The jury found Zoe Whittall's The Best Kind of People urgent and timely, nuanced and brave. This gripping story challenges how we hear women and girls, and dissects the self-hypnosis and fear that prevent us from speaking disruptive truth. - 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury

Author Bio

Zoe Whittall is the author of The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (2001), The Emily Valentine Poems (2006), and Precordial Thump (2008), and the editor of Geeks, Misfits, & Outlaws (2003). Her debut novel Bottle Rocket Hearts (2007) made the Globe and Mail Top 100 Books of the Year and CBC Canada Reads' Top Ten Essential Novels of the Decade. Her second novel Holding Still for as Long as Possible (2009) won a Lambda Literary Award and was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. Her writing has appeared in the Walrus, the Believer, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Fashion, and more. She has also worked as a writer and story editor on the TV shows Degrassi and Schitt's Creek. Born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, she has an MFA from the University of Guelph and lives in Toronto.