Bookish Mewsings: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Gallery/Saga Press; 2023 

Horror/Historical; 570 pgs 

Source: Own TBR

Gracetown, Florida, summer 1950.

Robert Stephen Jones Jr. is sent to Gracetown School for Boys for kicking a white boy’s leg. But the Gracetown School for Boys isn’t just any reform school. As Robert finds, it’s a segregated school that is haunted from the boys who have died there. The Reformatory is an eerie, frightening novel that explores the horrors of our history. [from the publisher]

One of the members of the Historical Fiction Book Club recommended this book to our group after having read it for her Philosophical Horror Book Club. It had been voted as their favorite book in 2023. I can see why. Tananarive Due's writing is beautiful and her ability to put the reader right into every scene of the novel is nothing but masterful. I could feel the emotions of her characters, the tension and fear, as well as the love Gloria and her brother, Robert, had for each other. The novel was both chilling and thought-provoking.

The Gracetown School for Boys, aka the Reformatory, was more than just a juvenile detention facility. It was an institution and business that was an integral part of the Gracetown community. It provided resources and financial support through the labor of the children imprisoned there. The entire town was dependent in some way on the Reformatory, and the people of Gracetown were complicit in the cruelties and abuses that took place there. Is it any wonder than that it is filled with ghosts of those wronged? Tananarive Due does not gloss over the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South during the 1950's. 

Robert is only twelve when he is sent to the Reformatory after trying to defend his sister from the white teenage son of a very influential local landowner. He is sentenced to six months and without a proper trial. His sister goes above and beyond to try and help her brother but to no avail. She is thwarted at every turn by a system that is designed to oppress and control anyone who does not have white skin. She is determined to get him out at all costs, even if it puts her own life in danger.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that Gloria is only a teenager herself, given the responsibilities on her shoulder. Gloria and Robert's mother passed away awhile ago and their father is on the run and living in Chicago, having been falsely accused of raping a white woman. Everyone knows he would never get a fair trial. Robert Sr. was respected in the Black community for being an activist and fighting for civil rights. You can imagine how that went over with the white community at the time. Gloria is raising her brother, having quit school and work to support them.

Young Robert had led a relatively sheltered life compared to some of the children at the Reformatory. What he may lack in so-called street smarts, he more than makes up for in courage and is very smart. He also has the unique ability of seeing haints, or ghosts. It doesn't take long for Robert to understand that the Reformatory is a place of death, where many kids have died, often in unnatural ways. His time at the Reformatory is anything but easy. He is taken under the wing of a couple of boys who become his friends, learning to navigate his new reality, even if unable to completely escape the abuse and neglect all the kids suffer through. Warden Haddock, the superintendent and person in charge, is the worst of the worst. He takes a cruel joy in the harm he causes. In the novel, Robert finds himself caught between the haints and Warden Haddock, both wanting to use him for their own purposes.

Although The Reformatory is fictionalized, with fictional characters and a fictional setting, a mention to a real historical figure here and there, a lot of research went into reflecting a true portrait of what life was like during that time period. Young Robert in the novel is named after a relative of the author's who had died at Florida's Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Robert in the book is not based on her relative, although his story did inspire the writing of the novel. A four year project lead by forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle in 2012 to uncover the graves of and identify those buried at Dozier led to Robert Stephens finally getting a proper resting place and his family being able to say goodbye.

Since I read this novel for my Historical Fiction Book Club, our focus was on the history in the novel--which plays a significant part in the overall story. The horror aspect of the novel was indeed terrifying, but the greatest threat was not necessarily that of the haints, but of the humans themselves. Not too different from reality, really. The fact that places like this existed, especially targeting children, Black or Indigenous, is deplorable. Unfortunately, even today, maltreatment of children in juvenile facilities is not unheard of, even if more socially frowned upon.

There was not a dull moment in the novel. Tension was high throughout. I felt the first half of the novel was a bit slower than the second, as the author built a strong and necessary foundation, weaving in the injustice and cruelties of racism during that time period. The haints, or ghosts, are very much an important part of this novel, with their own story to tell, and make The Reformatory all the more poignant. As chilling and terrifying as the events in this novel were, I want to point out that there were also some positives: the community rallying together to protect Gloria as the Klan threatened her and Miz Lottie, Miz Lottie and her boys in general for their support of Gloria and Robert, the attorney for confronting the white judge in an attempt to to help Robert, the kind music teacher, Miss Hamilton, and the special bond and love Gloria and her brother Robert share, among the most memorable.  

---

© 2025, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.