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Sign up todayThe Reformatory
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“I am in awe of Tananarive Due. A horror story set in Jim Crow Florida, The Reformatory is the kind of book that I will never ever forget, no matter how many years have passed. It’s clear that Due poured her heart and soul into this story, her efforts manifesting in vivid storytelling, impeccably researched history, and characters so fully realized that I had a hard time believing I wasn’t reading a history book. Most importantly, The Reformatory blurs the line between monster and human, asking us what we should be really scared of: the ghosts of our past, or the tyrannical and racist institutions that still dominate our present? Joniece Abbott-Pratt’s narration is masterful to the point where I was certain Gloria and Robert were in the room speaking to me. The whole experience gave me chills and left me sobbing. Pardon me while I now go read everything Due has ever written.”
— Wulfe • Raven Book Store
Bookseller recommendation
“This was hands down my favorite book of the year! Tananarive Due has written a powerful southern horror novel set in Florida during the Jim Crow era. Twelve year old Robbie Stephens is sent to the segregated Gracetown School for Boys for protecting his sister against the advances of the white son of the most powerful man in town. Not only does he have to contend with a sadistic and cruel warden but he also has the ability to see ghosts or 'haints' that haunt the reformatory. Based on the notorious Dozier School for Boys, this story not only scares you but it haunts you with the heartbreaking and horrific realities of racism and inequality in the 1950's south. ”
— Suzanne • Underground Books
*Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner * New York Times Notable Book * Locus Award Finalist * Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and the Shirley Jackson Award *
“You’re in for a treat...one of those books you can’t put down...Due hit it out of the park.” —Stephen King
A gripping, page-turning “masterpiece” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman) set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
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.
Tananarive Due is an American Book Award and NAACP Image Award–winning author, who was an executive producer on Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror for Shudder and teaches Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. She and her husband, science fiction author Steven Barnes, cowrote the graphic novel The Keeper and an episode for Season 2 of The Twilight Zone for Paramount Plus and Monkeypaw Productions. Due is the author of several novels and two short story collections, Ghost Summer: Stories and The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. She is also coauthor of a civil rights memoir, Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights (with her late mother, Patricia Stephens Due). Learn more at TananariveDue.com.