The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

December 31, 2024 2:30 AM

This historical horror novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Robbie who is sent to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (a reformatory school) in Florida in 1950. It's about racial injustice, systemic abuse, and...the supernatural.

The real-life, sobering racism of Jim Crow is deftly blended with ghosts and "haints." The novel inspiration from the real-life horrors that occurred at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Due combines historical fiction with supernatural elements to tell a powerful story about institutional racism and survival. I highly recommend it!

posted by zardoz (1 comment total)

I actually started this book last year but haven't finished--it is absolutely not the fault of the book; I just felt like I could see where it was going and I was feeling too fragile for it.

I'm going to come back to it. I've really enjoyed the little I know about the author--her class on Black horror, her interviews in Horror Noire, etc. and I want to give this story another chance.
posted by johnofjack at 5:56 PM on January 6