A Good Girl

A Novel

By: Johnnie Bernhard

Narrated by: Theresa Bakken

Gracey Reiter confronts a painful past and an intimidating future with the approaching death of her father, Henry Mueller, the self-described “last Mohican” from the chaotic gene pool known as the Walsh-Mueller family. The present holds the answer, and the last opportunity for Gracey to understand her father’s alcoholism, her mother’s infidelity, and her siblings’ version of the truth.

The voices of the past give Gracey the courage to find her voice. Using biting humor and gut-level truths for the first time in her life, Gracey walks across the land mines created by a crippling family legacy.

Henry’s funeral and the Irish wedding of Therese Mueller, Gracey’s and her husband Mark Mueller’s daughter, coincide by a few weeks and serve as a completion of the family circle. With the closing of one door, and the opening of the future, Gracey finds forgiveness by realizing six generations of the Walsh-Mueller family, saints and sinners, criminals and heroes, the abandoned and the celebrated, are forever family, forever bound by blood and the dreams of an Irish girl, Patricia Walsh Mueller.

A Good Girl examines the numbing work of raising children and burying parents through six generations.

©2017 Johnnie Bernhard (P)2021 Texas Review Press

Coming to terms with imperfect parents and painful memories

As a child of an alcoholic, I found a lot to identify with in this book, but this book is not all about the long-lasting heartache a dysfunctional relationship can cause. There's a message of redemption and understanding, too.

Once I started reading I became deeply involved in the characters and their stories. I even laughed out loud at the main character's rant about bean-bag ashtrays - and I don't normally react out loud when reading

I didn't want to put the book down once I started to read. There's a gentle wisdom within the pages that doesn't let you wallow in broken humanity and that wisdom leads to healing.

Great book!