The Good House by Ann Leary

Published January 15th 2013 by St. Martin's Press

The Good House is one of those books that has been hanging around on my shelf for years. I initially grabbed it because it popped up on some lists for books about witches, though when I read the summary I wasn't sure exactly how. 🤔 But, I decided I needed to bump it up my TBR when I heard that filming had begun (I'm someone who has to read the book before I see the movie. Are you?) and the staff looks like it's going to be stellar: Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Beverly D'Angelo, David Rasche, Rebecca Henderson, Molly Brown, Kelly AuCoin, and Kathryn Erbe. 

I ended up listening to The Good House on audio and I would highly recommend it! Hildy Good cracked me up and the narrator, Mary Beth Hurt, delivered each line with perfection. I especially loved that the protagonist of this novel is "of a certain age"--a rarity in mainstream fiction. 


Goodreads Summary:A funny, poignant and revealing novel that’s become a huge word-of-mouth hit in the US.
How do you prove you're not an alcoholic? 

Hildy Good has reached that dangerous time in a woman's life - middle-aged and divorced, she is an oddity in her small but privileged town. But Hildy isn't one for self-pity and instead meets the world with a wry smile, a dark wit and a glass or two of Pinot Noir. When her two earnest grown-up children stage 'an intervention' and pack Hildy off to an addiction centre, she thinks all this fuss is ridiculous. After all, why shouldn't Hildy enjoy a drink now and then?

But as the story progresses, we start to see another side to Hildy Good, and to her life's greatest passion - the lies and self deceptions needed to support her drinking, and the damage she causes to those she loves. When a cluster of secrets become dangerously entwined, the reckless behaviour of one threatens to expose the other, with devastating consequences.