I would like to thank Titan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out Now

Price – £9.99 paperback £5.03 Kindle eBook

Jim Crow Florida, 1950.

Twelve-year-old Robert Stephens Jr., who for a trivial scuffle with a white boy is sent to The Gracetown School for Boys. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there.

In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...

Horror is the unusual genre where its about the reaction rather than the setting. Horror can be fantastical, science fiction-based or without any speculative elements at all. Your house may be haunted by a ghost, a dangerous AI or your next-door neighbour may be a psychopath - the reaction to both revelations can be the same.  In Tananarive Due’s stunning novel The Reformatory we are taken to Florida in 1950 where one child’s rash action leads to a living nightmare of ghosts and even worse human being who do not care how far they go to control someone’s life. It is a powerful read that I think has been one of the scariest reads I’ve read in a long time.

Robert Stephens Jr is 12 years old and lives the small town of Gracetown. While walking with his sister Gloria he watches the son of a wealthy powerful landowner harasses her and to defend Gloria he kicks out once. However, Robert is Black and the teenager he kicks is belong to a powerful rich white family and so Robert finds himself in a few hours arrested, brought before a judge without a lawyer and then sentenced to six months in the local Reformatory. While Gloria desperately seeks a way to get her brother freed, Robert finds himself in daily nightmare where the sadistic Warden Haddock takes an intense interest in him and on top of that Robert realises this a place filled with haints – the ghosts of the reformatory and there are many many haints who feel that Robert too is needed by them for their own purposes.

Typically, in horror we think the ghost will be the scariest element of a horror story but actually while they are creepy and in many ways inhuman it’s the wider world that I found the incredibly disturbing. Due brings the reader into the perspective of two Black children in the age of Jim Crow and full-on societal racism. In Robert’s storyline we just get to see how even though he is a child, the state because of his skin colour treats him more as a hardened criminal and delights in horrific torture and punishment.  Those in power use racial terms as a matter of course. What strikes you is that it is not simply personal it’s soon revealed this is how all the Reformatory’s kids are treated particularly those in the segregated Black section of the prison. Every scene we get to be nervous waiting for the latest cruel trick to be played or unfair punishment meted out.  The guards, teachers and minor officials feel absolutely nothing is wrong with what they do. They think they need to do this as the children are feral. Its terrifying and the concept of a place called the Funhouse feels ominous and then we live through Robert’s experience going there and its one of the scariest scenes I’ve read as a young child is completely unprotected and placed in huge danger.

At the centre of this is the character appropriately named Warden Haddock. He is a cold hearted sadist sitting at the heart of the reformatory and we see that he is the most memorable villain from his very first scene. Malevolent in a quiet way and full of a temper and desire violence just awaiting an opportunity to be released which he can do so with the full authority and approval of the state. The more we find out about him we find his crimes are truly abhorrent and that he finds himself pulled into Robert’s orbit troubles us.

One of the themes of the book is that The Reformatory and Gracetown is a hotspot for these ghosts known as haints. Some see them but many people blame them for strange accidents and then at the reformatory we find it’s had a long history of horrific deaths many deemed accidents but often down to the staff and in particular Warden Haddock’s many crimes. What links the two is Robert being one of the few who can see them and if you can see where a haint is then it is possible to trap them. Haddock is very keen the haints are captured. An unusual plotline that starts to bring Robert and Haddock into an uneasy deal emerges but Haddock places Robert’s only friends as bargaining chips. Again, this never feels a safe plotline. The haints see Robert as a tool and they show a lack of care if a living person is hurt idle it helps achieve their aims. For Robert we see the danger he and his friends are in, but this is not a children’s story. Bad things can and do happen every day and surviving each day alone is a success, but we also see this young boy age into adulthood in just a few days and it’s a very powerful piece of writing making us feel how this place traumatised the kids in it.

Another plotline that I find equally important is Gloria’s role after Robert is imprisoned. It’s so easy to write Robert’s experience as simply a bad apple in power but Gloria’s story shows the societal power imbalance at play. This is a time where racism is not hidden, the towns are segregated, the police and judges are openly biased, and the Klan is openly acting when they feel a Black person has got out of rhyme which we experience and it’s the aftermath of seeing no one acting on it being the worse. We find out that Gloria and Robert’s father has been run out of town for discussing starting a union and Robert’s imprisonment is used as bait. What I think works so well is we find how powerless people are in this situation. Social workers, respectable women and sharp NAACP lawyers are met, and all find the scale of this society’s problems means there is a full brick wall none can break against and for many it’s the consequences against themselves that makes people decide not to push too hard. It’s left to Gloria and her elderly Godmother (a delightfully deceptively smart elderly woman named Miz Lottie) to engineer a way for Robert to get out. Again, like Robert’s scenes Due puts us into experiencing Gloria’s reaction to the world. She finds that being right isn’t enough, having allies isn’t enough and this world is not fair. There is a powerful nighttime scene where two police officers stop Gloria and Miz Lottie on a deserted road and it underlines exactly how dangerous this world is. As Due notes in the afterward there is a lot of inspiration from real historical events used in this story and it’s constantly troubling on those things that has not changed in many ways nearly 75 years later.

For me The Reformatory is one of the most terrifying stories I have read in many years. Due places us into a world where we experience what it is like where danger lurks everywhere and that our two young main characters are finding out that the supernatural side of things is not the scariest element, it’s the casual everyday cruelty that becomes apparent. Anyone for the simplest mistake could lose their liberty and ultimately their life. The inhumanity of it comes across powerfully and yet there is a strand of people not giving in, coming together for those they love and doing their best to take a chance. It isnot an easy read but its compelling and I could not let this book go until the final page was read. One of the best horror stories I’ve read in ages. I’m looking forward to now exploring many more of Due’s novels. Strongly recommended!