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The Reformatory

by Tananarive Due

fictionAfrican American fictionhistorical fictionhorrorsegregation
5.0
Open Library
Open Library

About this book

Gracetown, Florida - June 1950 Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

Themes & subjects

fictionAfrican American fictionhistorical fictionhorrorsegregationghost stories

Characters & people

Setting

GracetownFloridaGracetown School for Boys1950

About the author

Tananarive Due
Tananarive Due

1966

Tananarive Due (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include ***The Reformatory*** (winner of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Chautauqua Prize, Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson Award, World Fantasy Award, and a New York Times Notable Book), ***The Wishing Pool and Other Stories***, ***Ghost Summer: Stories***, ***My Soul to Keep***, and ***The Good House***. She and her late mother, civil righ…

Author

Tananarive Due

Pages

576

Read time

≈ 14h

Editions

4

Language

English

Publisher

Saga Press

ISBN

9781803366531

Where to buy

TR
Amazon Bookshop

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