THE BOOK: The Good Deed
PUBLISHED IN: 2024
THE AUTHOR: Helen Benedict
THE EDITOR: Kate Gale
THE PUBLISHER: Red Hen Press, Pasadena, CA. Independent press that’s been around since 1994.
SUMMARY: Set in 2018 against the backdrop of an overcrowded, fetid refugee camp on the beautiful Greek island of Samos, The Good Deed follows the stories of four women living in the camp and an American tourist who comes to Samos to escape her own dark secret. When the tourist does a “good deed,” she triggers a crisis that brings her and the refugee women into a conflict that escalates dramatically as each character struggles for what she needs.
One of my favorite descriptions of the novel comes from Iranian author Dalia Sofer, who wrote the brilliant, Man of My Time. “A poignant, layered novel on displacement and belonging, love and betrayal, and the jagged space between altruism and egoism.”
THE BACK STORY: I decided to write The Good Deed in 2018, when I spent five weeks with refugees on the island of Samos, in Greece. I was so horrified by the conditions they lived amidst in this otherwise beautiful place — their camp was like a slum inside a prison — and yet so moved by the resilience and kindness of the people I met, that I felt compelled to write articles and a nonfiction book exposing their plight, and a novel doing the same in aneven deeper way.
WHY THIS TITLE?: The story basically turns the white savior trope inside-out, so the title is ironic but also literal.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Because it’s a story about people’s courge in the face of hardship, a story about friendship, about love, and about lives very far from the experiences of many readers — lives we all need to understand better. But also because it’s sweeping, dramatic and sometimes funny book!
REVIEW COMMENTS:
Kirkus Reviews: “The novel reminds us that hope is still to be found in the most desolate of places… prompting the reader to consider why and how we ask a person to prove their own humanity. An insightful reminder of our responsibilities to one another, more important now than ever.”
Publishers Weekly:”Benedict revisits the terrain of her nonfiction title Map of Hope and Sorrow for a complex and heartbreaking story of Syrians living at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos…Each of the characters’ perspectives is nuanced and carefully wrought. Benedict has crafted an involving tale of a humanitarian crisis.”
Booklist: “Benedict’s haunting, timely novel traces the intense journeys of female refugees as their paths collide with a vacationing tourist… (This) true-to-life novel resonates, particularly in the characters’ moments of fortitude in the face of brutal experiences of heartbreak and loss.”
AUTHOR PROFILE: Helen Benedict, a professor at Columbia University, is the author of seven previous novels, six books of nonfiction, and a play. Her newest novel, The Good Deed,comes out of the research she conducted for her 2022 nonfiction book, Map of Hope and Sorrow, which earned PEN’s Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History in 2021. Benedict’s previous novel, Wolf Season received a starred review in Library Journal, which wrote, “In a book that deserves the widest attention, Benedict ‘follows the war home,’ engaging readers with an insightful story right up until the gut-wrenching conclusion.” Benedict’s 2011 novel, Sand Queen , was named a “Best Contemporary War Novel” by Publishers Weekly. A recipient of the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, she is also the author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq. Her books have been translated into seven languages.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: “As the novel comes out of my research and reporting about refugees, who personify one of the most pressing issues of our day, I hope it will help to push against the demonization of immigrants that is growing ever more common around the world and in the United States. We have to find compassionate ways to help refugees because, between the climate and today’s wars, the need will grow ever more urgent.”
SAMPLE:
Not again. Please.
A splash dives into my snorkel tube, so I raise my head to empty it out and take in where I am. Far—a great deal farther than I thought. The little rowboat has shrunk to the size of a bath toy. I’m not tired but I am sensible. Time to turn back.
Just as I do, my eye catches a spot of color, an orange object bobbing a short distance away . . . a buoy perhaps, or else a polluting plastic bag I ought to remove. I swim closer.
It is not a buoy. Or a bag. It’s a life jacket. With somebody in it. A pitifully small somebody.
A fist closes around me, pulling me to a halt. I tread water, my breath suddenly short and airless.
Not again. Please.
The little figure is ominously still—no sign of swimming or flailing. No movement at all.
The fist grips tighter.
Not this time, Hilma. You can’t.
With a shudder, I wrench free of my paralysis and push myself closer. Then again, the fist.
WHERE TO BUY IT: Your local store, https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-good-deed-helen-benedict/20210110?ean=9781636281124, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-good-deed-helen-benedict/1143709605?ean=9781636281124, Amazon or anywhere else.
PRICE: $18.95
CONTACT THE AUTHOR: https://www.facebook.com/helen.benedict.5
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 