Good People

For readers of Swift River and The Vanishing Half, a sharp, provocative debut novel about race, identity, ambition, and the dangerous stories we tell ourselves about who we are.

Abandoned in a high chair as a baby with a Black family who adopted and raised her, Jo Tope, a white woman, grows up convinced that she is destined for a different life—one defined by elite schools, prestigious institutions, and the promise of belonging among the white world she believes was meant to be hers.

Now a hard-drinking student at Johns Hopkins University, Jo is singularly focused on winning a Rhodes Scholarship and escaping to Oxford. She is certain that achievement, status, and proximity to power will finally make her whole. But as her drinking worsens and the carefully constructed narrative of her life begins to unravel, Jo is forced to confront the question she has spent years avoiding: what does it actually mean to be a good person—and who gets to decide?

Darkly funny, intellectually daring, and unflinchingly honest, Good People is a bold debut that examines race, class, identity, family, and the limits of self-invention. Through the unforgettable voice of a deeply flawed protagonist, Kat Lewis delivers a bold, striking debut that challenges how we define belonging, and whether goodness is something we inherit, perform, or earn.