The Reformatory

Starred review from June 1, 2023

In 1950 Jim Crow-era Florida, kids Gloria Stephens and Robbie Stephens Jr. are left behind after their mother dies from cancer and their activist father is forced to flee northward. For Gloria and Robbie, like for other Black residents of the county, life is hard, but Gloria and Robbie's presence in particular makes white people think of their "troublemaker" father. When Robbie kicks a white boy to protect his older sister, he is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory with a notorious history. Told in the alternating perspectives of Gloria and Robbie, Due's novel follows the action as Gloria works to set Robbie free. The history of the horror that imprisons Robbie has a long tail--but the ghosts who live on the reformatory's grounds are unwilling to wait for justice any longer. The writing here is spectacular; the pacing, engrossing; the setting, heartbreaking but honest; and the characters are given a nuance and depth rarely seen. VERDICT American Book Award winner Due (The Wishing Pool and Other Stories) has written a masterpiece of fiction whose fear actively surrounds its readers, while the novel speaks to all situations where injustice occurs and compels its audience to act. For fans of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, The Trees by Percival Everett, and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2023
No matter how much you'll want to look away from the callous injustice and horrific abuse depicted here, this period thriller's investment of urgency and imagination keeps you riveted. It's 1950 and the relatively sheltered life of Robert Stephens, a 12-year-old African American boy living in Florida, is changed forever when he comes to the aid of his older sister, Gloria, who is harassed by the teenage son of their town's wealthiest white man. Though Robert does nothing more than kick Lyle McCormack, reprisals only begin with Lyle's father brutally boxing Robert's right ear. Robert is soon handcuffed, dragged away by police, and given a quick trial. He's sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, euphemistically known as "The Reformatory," an institution known for racism and brutality toward its adolescent population. Thirty years before, a fire at the school killed 25 boys, many of whom were buried in a gravesite on the grounds along with the bodies of other inmates who died prematurely (and mysteriously). Somehow, Robert can communicate with these dead boys' ghosts, and the institution's creepy and corrupt Warden Haddock promises Robert early release if he will somehow help him put these "haints" in something called a "collection jar." And yes, the spirits are out to get the warden, too. For revenge. But mostly, they want Robert to help set them free and let them be at peace. Meanwhile, Gloria is fiercely, doggedly determined to set Robert free, using whatever legal means are available to a young Black woman in the still-segregated South, including the NAACP. Like Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning The Nickel Boys (2019), this novel is based on Florida's infamous Dozier School for Boys. Due brings her own gifts in the supernatural-fantasy genre as well as elements of her own family history (the book is dedicated in part to her great-uncle, who died at Dozier in 1937) to this vividly realized page-turner, which is at once an ingenious ghost story, a white-knuckle adventure, and an illuminating if infuriating look back at a shameful period in American jurisprudence that, somehow, doesn't seem so far away. A novel that reminds its readers that racism forges its own lasting, unbearable nightmares.

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Starred review from August 21, 2023
NAACP Image Award winner Due (The Wishing Pool) takes an unflinching look at American racism in this masterful work of historical horror. When Robert Stephens Sr., a Black man, is accused of trying to rape a white woman in 1950 Gracetown, Fla., there’s no chance for justice. He flees to Chicago, leaving his 16-year-old daughter Gloria and 12-year-old son Robert “Robbie” Stephens Jr. behind with promises to be reunited one day. The siblings’ plan to keep their heads down is thwarted when a local white boy makes unwanted advances on Gloria and Robbie kicks him in her defense. He’s sentenced to six months in an austere, prisonlike reformatory school where dangerous punishments, cruel wardens, and the ghosts of past students abound. As the thinly veiled history of the reformatory’s wardens murdering their charges comes to light, Due toggles between Robbie and Gloria’s POVs, with Gloria fighting to free her brother and Robbie fighting for his life against wardens and haints alike. Throughout, Due shows off her undeniable skill for characterization and voice, impressively capturing Robbie’s youth. This harrowing, supernaturally inflected depiction of racism’s unbridled cruelty and the generational trauma it can inflict is sure to stick in readers’ minds. Agent: Donald Maass, Donald Maass Literary.

Starred review from August 1, 2023
When her brother Robbie gets six months at the notorious Gracetown Reformatory for Boys for kicking a white boy who said something indecent to her, Gloria Stephens is -devastated--and furious. Points of view alternate between Gloria, whose efforts to get Robbie released are aided by her elderly godmother, Miz Lottie, and Robbie, who suffers the horrors of Gracetown and its sadistic Warden Haddock. Gracetown is populated by more than the living, however, and Robbie has an unusual ability to see the haints of boys who died at the school. Haddock wants him to use his ability to help destroy the haints, threatening torture if he refuses, but the haints beg him not to, with a different kind of danger on offer if he assists the warden. Due brings the horrors of Jim Crow Florida to life, with human monsters who are far more chilling than anything supernatural. With fully realized characters and well-placed twists, she ratchets up the tension until the final, extraordinary showdown. Recommend to those who enjoyed Sarah Read's The Bone Weaver's Orchard (2019), LaTanya McQueen's When the Reckoning Comes (2021), or Due's short-story collection, Ghost Summer (2015), which features other tales set in the same part of rural Florida. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A new novel from horror legend Due is always big news, so expect lots of interest for this one.

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