Goodhouse

Peyton Marshall

Doubleday

Otago Daily Times, November 22nd 2014

Whenever the burgeoning prison population cycles back into the focus of political and media consciousness, a call for pre-emptive rather than reactive action to curb offending usually follows. Quite what this would involve and how it might impact on wider society is much less frequently discussed, and Peyton Marshall’s debut novel, Goodhouse, is a though-provokingly plausible evocation of just such a scenario. 

The story is set in a near future where genetic profiling of prison populations has identified a set of markers that distinguish the most brutal and sociopathic offenders from the rest of the population. Genetic testing of the families of all those convicted of a violent felony is now mandatory, with men testing positive for the genetic tendency registered and sterilised and boys removed to state-run institutions – Goodhouses – where they are taught the psychological strategies and ways of ‘right thinking’ that will enable them to overcome their criminal tendencies and become productive, healthy members of ‘normal’ society.

But these schools that were born of benevolent intent have evolved over the decades into places of institutionalised brutality where friendship is discouraged, empathy is a liability and power accrues to the strongest. They have also become the focus of hatred for members of a new religious movement, the Zeros, who are determined to cleanse the world of the genetically impure.

The story is told by a 17-year-old James, a Goodhouse boy on track to graduate as a shining exemplar of what achieved by the system. But he is also the sole survivor of a Zero-led attack that destroyed his previous school and is now struggling to integrate into a new campus, and to deal with the memories of watching everybody he ever cared about murdered in front of his eyes.

When he sees a familiar face among the staff and realises that Zeros have in infiltrated this Goodhouse too. But his attempts to warn the authorities see him labelled dangerously paranoid and consigned to the care of Dr Cleveland, the very man he has just denounced. His one ally is the doctor’s daughter, Bethany, but how can two people overcome the inertia of an institution specifically designed to subdue and eliminate any opposition.

Although it is easy to dismiss this novel as science fiction (and YA to boot, a double condemnation), its background is far from fictional. The first court cases in which genetic predisposition to violence was argued as a mitigating factor at trial were held nearly a decade ago, and in her descriptions of life in the Goodhouses, Marshall drew heavily on the memoirs of boys raised in a juvenile correction facility that was closed only 3 years ago. Goodhouse is a confronting and complex novel almost impossible to put down. It is also a timely reminder of issues that we ignore at our own peril.