What the Dead Want

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 18, 2016

Review

Sixteen-year-old Gretchen inherits the house of her ancestors from her famous photojournalist Aunt, E. E. Axton. As Gretchen stays overnight with her aunt in the cluttered, paint-peeling, paranormal playground, she quickly learns the dark historical cruelties that fuel the present day obsessions with the house by the women in her family. Deaths and accidents in the town are violently increasing and the task to reveal the hidden history and allow the tormented ghosts of two little girls, who are at the center of the chaos, to move on rests on the unsuspecting Gretchen and her photographic skills when her aunt commits suicide in the house's darkroom on that first night. The lynching of slaves, betrayal of loved ones, the entrapment of females and the Underground Railroad provide dark layers to this suspenseful ghost story. Olson uses a third person voice, historical letters and creepy photographs that support the various pieces of information that Gretchen, her two dark-skinned cousins and her gay friend uncover. There is one historical inaccuracy where the date of a letter that discusses the newly formed Ku Klux Klan is one year before the group's actual formation in the South, but that doesn't diminish the haunted ghostliness of the tale.

Overall Book Score: very good