Bram Stoker Award Best Novel Winner
The Reformatory
by Tananarive Due
Summary
In 1950 Florida, twelve year old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to the brutal Gracetown School for Boys after defending his sister, a place where the cruelty of the staff is matched by the restless ghosts that haunt its grounds. Robbie can see these dead boys, called haints, and his gift draws him into danger as his sister fights to free him before the reformatory destroys him. Due grounds her ghost story in the real horrors of Jim Crow and a notorious abusive institution, blending tender family bonds with relentless terror.
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Historical Context & Significance
Tananarive Due drew on the history of the Dozier School and on her own great uncle who died at that institution to write this Stoker and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner.