Review | Everything Is Beautiful and Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen Here by Michael Wehunt

Everything Is Beautiful and Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen Here is published through the Nightscape Press Charitable Chapbooks line. One third of all sales of this book will go to support the Southern Poverty Law Center. The paperback is fully colour illustrated and signed, limited to only 250 copies! You can find more information on this book at this page.

This is a ghost story. It has those that scratch at bedroom doors and tap at windows, wanting to be let in. It has those that haunt all of us, long after the others tire of the scratching. For some, doors are not enough.

This is a gorgeous, nightmarish tale of secrets, rage and guilt. Bea Holcombe lives in a small town in North Carolina with her husband and children. She considers her family and her neighbours as decent people. She thinks her mostly white neighbourhood is changing for the worse and wants nothing more than for everything to go back to the way it was. But when her white next-door neighbour carries out a mass shooting on a group of black demonstrators, her world view starts to crumble. Between the violent tragedy, the rallying of white supremacists and the appearance of unexplainable spectres in her house, Bea finds herself searching for the truth and the role she plays in the lives of others.

I went into this without reading other reviews and I’m glad I did that! The story took me on a journey, surprising and frightening me along the way. The fictional tragic event could be ripped from the headlines, reflecting today’s turbulent society. The book doesn’t shy away from talking about racial injustice and how people like Bea contributes to the discontent. She is a passive white woman who believes in the safety of her idyllic neighbourhood and of maintaining the status quo even at the expense of others. The buildup of Bea’s increasing self-awareness is beautifully written. She starts questioning whether she really knows the people in her life, from her neighbours to her own husband. While I started off disliking Bea, I thought her character growth is profound and realistic.

The phrase “This is a ghost story” is repeated throughout the book because the horrors don’t just come from depictions of real life. Ghosts start appearing to Bea, silent and yearning. The way they are described is incredibly vivid and unnerving. I couldn’t read this at night! This haunting of Bea is intertwined with the events in her life. Because this is a ghost story, even if some ghosts aren’t dead. Sometimes the ghosts are the ones still living.

Everything Is Beautiful and Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen Here brings up difficult, important questions about race, privilege and complicity. This is the kind of ghost story where the haunting comes not just from the ghosts but from a life allowed to live unchallenged. Can a person be haunted by their own life? Perhaps this story might even haunt you. I can’t recommend it enough!

Everything Is Beautiful and Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen Here is out now. An ebook edition will be released in March 2020 or once the physical copies are sold out. I received a complimentary copy for review purposes.

About the author: Michael Wehunt

Photo by Jesse Bowser