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Fifty-two-year-old Grace Reiter is returning home to South Texas, \u201ca place she spent a lifetime running from,\u201d as her father, Henry, \u201cthe last surviving patriarch of a chaotic gene pool,\u201d lies in a hospital bed dying from colon cancer and a heart \u201cshriveled from disease and disappointment.\u201d Grace is the middle child, the dutiful peacemaker, sandwiched between her older brother, Tom, and her younger sister, Angela. Henry, the product of a legacy of alcoholism and abandonment, has been a difficult father; now that he\u2019s dying, he wants devoted children. Grace knows she must learn to forgive Henry to save her troubled marriage, and avoid spending the remainder of her years embittered by regret and resentment.<\/div>\n

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A Good Girl<\/a> is the debut novel, equal parts contemporary and historical fiction, from Johnnie Bernhard. I was instantly drawn in by Grace\u2019s voice and Bernhard\u2019s skillful use of small details to build a rich, dimensional portrait of a people and a place. Bernhard explores universal themes of redemption, hope, and forgiveness, as Grace progresses in her interior exploration of character and motivation.<\/p>\n

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Bernhard\u2019s flawed characters are sympathetic, their dysfunctional family dynamics authentic. Grace sometimes provokes impatience as she indulges in self-pity, but her development is handled deftly. When the siblings meet at the house where they grew up, the scenes are fraught with the weight of secrets and misunderstandings. Irma, Henry\u2019s girlfriend, \u201ca love affair that began with a feud across a six-foot privacy fence,\u201d is a hoot, a \u201cmixture of post-WWII working woman and redneck hoarder\u201d who doesn\u2019t leave home without her personal ashtray.<\/p>\n

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A Good Girl<\/em> moves at a swift, steady pace. Though Grace\u2019s musings become repetitive and overly sentimental during the middle of her third-person narration, her wry humor is the antidote. Her commentary on \u201ca culture that based its world view on cable news and elementary-level geography lessons\u201d is spot-on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bernhard can turn a phrase (\u201cI-10 West was a 500-mile umbilical cord\u201d), and her word choices are precise (\u201cso much of her father\u2019s life was hearsay\u201d), her dialogue engaging (\u201c[Mama] was dead at sixty, Tom, because she pushed a rock up a hill every day of her life. A rock called Henry\u201d).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A Good Girl<\/em> employs frequent, lengthy flashbacks, tracing \u201ctwo hundred years of a chaotic family history [that] began with an Irish girl, Patricia Walsh of County Galway, Ireland.\u201d The family tree inserted after the title page is a nice touch and proves useful. Bernhard does a neat job of fitting the fictional family biography into the chronicle of Texas history, and she\u2019s obviously familiar with small-town Texas. Changes between contemporary settings and historical periods are appropriately marked by shifts in tone and style, though a light copyedit would improve the work before its next printing. That Grace\u2019s daughter is marrying an Irishman she met at college, and moving to Ireland, is an inspired touch that brings the story full circle, enabling a satisfying ending.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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