A novel that reminds its readers that racism forges its own lasting, unbearable nightmares.
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.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781982188344
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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