by Tananarive Due
Set in 1950s Florida, The Reformatory follows twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, who is sent to the segregated Gracetown School for Boys after defending his sister Gloria from the unwanted advances of Lyle McCormick. But Robbie’s sentencing isn’t just punishment for that act. It’s a trap. His father, Robert Stephens, is a Black man falsely accused of raping a white woman who has fled to Chicago. A union organizer with enemies in powerful places, Robert is being lured back through the incarceration of his own son.
We soon learn that Robbie is spirit sensitive. He sees ghosts, or “haints,” and this gift is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he feels the presence of his mother, a comfort that helps him endure the atrocities he faces. A curse because he also sees the ghosts of boys who came before him, those who died violently at the hands of the evil, psychopathic Warden Haddock, by fire, by beating, by every manner of physical and emotional harm imaginable, all desperate to avoid being sent to the “Shed.”
Meanwhile, Gloria is fighting on the outside to secure the legal help her brother desperately needs. Alongside Ms. Lottie, the woman tasked with caring for Robbie and Gloria after the death of their mother and a Warrior Queen if there ever was one, she races to get Robbie released before it’s too late.
The Reformatory is classified as a literary, historical, and horror novel. And while you might assume the horror comes from its supernatural elements, make no mistake. The true horror here is entirely human. It is the vile and calculated evil of those who use their power to torture children and discriminate against people whose skin is a different colour than their own. The ghosts are almost beside the point.
Trigger warnings: physical and sexual abuse, blood and violence.
Ink And Spine 