In Gracetown, Florida, in June 1950, twelve-year-old Robert Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys — the Reformatory — for kicking the son of the town's largest landowner in defense of his older sister, Gloria. Inside, boys are worked, beaten, and sometimes disappear; Robert, who can see ghosts, or haints, learns from friends Redbone and Blue how to survive, and from the dead what the school has buried. Outside, Gloria works every family tie and fragile alliance to get him out before his sentence becomes meaningless. Due drew the novel from her own family history — her great-uncle Robert Stephens died at Florida's real Dozier School for Boys in 1937 — and the book, at once ghost story, adventure, and Jim Crow history, won the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and World Fantasy awards.
Author: Tananarive Due · Original publisher: Saga Press (New York), 2023