We Are a Haunting

WINNER, The Center for Fiction First Novel PrizeBrooklyn Public Library Book Prize LonglistA Best Book of 2023 – NPR, Electric Literature, Largehearted Boy, Black Girl Nerds, Le Noir Auteur“An absolute triumph.” —Michael Schaub, NPR“Astonishing.” —Kiese Laymon, MacArthur Fellow and author of Long Division“What a beautiful, haunting and hued narrative of American living. I’m in love with this story.” —Jacqueline Woodson, MacArthur Fellow and author of Another BrooklynA poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losi