Reviews
"A recent graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Peyton Marshall has proved a singular talent, in essays published by The New York Times and A Public Space. She also plays bass in a band, The Third Sex, and now has a dystopian novel, Goodhouse." -From The Observer, 9.10.14
"Goodhouse is richly imagined and builds to a
satisfyingly suspenseful conclusion." -Booklist, 9.1.14
"Gripping and fast paced, Peyton Marshall's Goodhouse is a dystopian story of a world that incarcerates its youth before they have even committed at crime. It manages to be chilling and close to the bone. Presumed guilty, boys with a family history of delinquency become trapped in their genetics - pure fiction of near future?" -Campus Circle, 9.23.14
"Marshall’s tale of the human capacity for both love and
brutality sears with questions about justice, education, genetic testing, and fundamentalism."
-Portland Monthly, 9.30.14
turned internally on these boys, how it changes who they are. How if you aren't a monster to begin with, the Goodhouse turns you into one."
-Amy Eller Lewis, Criminal Element, 9.21.14
"Marshall's novel moves well, and the adolescent James is convincingly off-balance throughout. The result is a
genre-bending thriller with a literary voice." -Publishers' Weekly, 7.24.14
Included in The New York Observer's Fall Arts Preview: Top 10 Books
Picked as One of the 22 Must Read Books for Fall by Campus Circle
the present-day penal system and the still-existent youth facilities overpopulated with undereducated minorities. The novel is a prescient warning that profiling can be as destructive to a single boy as it can for an entire country." -The Master's Review, 9.30.14
destiny is really in our control. It's a thought-provoking look at a plausible near-future that will appeal to teens as well as adults."
-The Oregonian, 9.29.14
"What Peyton Marshall really does well is showing how all this fear and loathing gets
"By not inundating us with the supercomputer gadgetry common in some sci-fi dystopias, Marshall allows the reader to draw these parallels, not only between Goodhouse and Preston, but also with
enough, but protagonist James is in a worse spot in Marshall's debut novel. Goodhouse facilities are prison/reeducation camps for boys identified as having a genetic tendency toward violent behavior. But are they born criminals, or does the Goodhouse program make them violent? A cut above the strong recent crop of dystopian futures, with a sympathetic protagonist, a believably degenerated society, and harrowing pacing, this deserves a wide audience." -Library Journal, 9.1.14
"Incarceration in the Goodhouse system is tough