SUCH GOOD PEOPLE
A Novel
by Amy Blumenfeld
In Blumenfeld’s novel, a teacher deals with her childhood best friend’s impending release from prison.
April Nelson is a Brooklyn, New York, native who’s built a solid life for herself in Chicago. She’s an elementary school teacher who’s married to Peter, a lawyer who’s running for state’s attorney, and with three young kids to raise and aging parents back in New York, she has a busy life. However, elements of her past return to haunt her. In college, she and her childhood friend and neighbor, Rudy DeFranco, went to a bar, where an altercation ensued in which Rudy pulled a knife; after a struggle, the knife fell to the ground, April grabbed it, and she and Rudy fled the scene before fully taking in what happened. The other party died the next day, and Rudy ended up in prison; April was later expelled from college. Now, Rudy is being released from prison. April is already getting calls from the media, and she hopes to prevent any damage to Peter’s political aspirations, and to her other family members’ lives. Specifically, Jillian Jones, a journalist who went to college with April, has learned of the new developments; she covered the crime for their college newspaper years ago. Now a newspaper reporter in Manhattan, she knows that it could be a big story. Blumenfeld’s follow up to 2018’s The Cast features a clearheaded and ambitious protagonist who essentially carries the novel. The author effectively describes April’s history as a New Yorker, as well as her current circumstances and fraught emotions, in a way that feel realistic and relatable. Her history is complicated, as Jillian discovers, and April’s feelings about Rudy are, too, but the narrative relates it all clearly; however, readers may feel that the characterization of April’s politically ambitious husband is left on the back burner for too long. Overall, though, this engaging novel succeeds as a story of dealing with the consequences and challenges of decisions made in one’s youth.
A highly readable story of ties that bind and skeletons in the closet.