The
narrator, Emma Grace Lee, is almost nineteen and has a strange affection for
Friendship Cemetery, Columbus, Mississippi. ‘A few benches are also scattered around. I
guess this is so that the ghosts who come out at night can sit and chat with
each other,’ observes Emma, which may be construed as ‘maybe a bit morbid for
an eighteen-year-old’.
Emma’s
friends are Pea, Beau, and Tyrone, all of whom are well drawn. Pea is fragile
and vulnerable, yet has a strong will, and is a lovely creation. Tyrone is shy
and withdrawn, while Beau is clever and hiding a secret. Their parents and
neighbours are distinct human beings, with their tragedies and petty jealousies,
too.
Throughout,
the observations and description put you in Emma’s world, where she is still suffering
the loss of her father who died in New Orleans, a man whom her mother seems to
have expunged from memory. ‘When you
lose someone there is always one more thing you wanted to say to them.’
The
voice of Emma is captured perfectly – reminding me a little of Harper Lee’s Scout
Finch, despite an age difference of several years. There’s the humour, pathos, compassion,
irony and even satire. She has never
been to New Orleans, but knows all about it from her late father, and rather
hankers after leaving Columbus to go there. ‘In this city, unlike New Orleans,
dead people prefer to stay in the ground and are apparently quite comfortable
there.’
It’s
a Southern Gothic tale, not just because of the ghostliness of the cemetery,
but also the healing ability of Tyrone’s mother; and the general behaviour of
many citizens and their concealed past that is gradually disinterred. As Emma
muses, ‘Willowbrook is the mental health facility connected to Baptist
Hospital. There are no willows, and no brook. I think a crazy person named it.’
In
truth, you’d be crazy to miss this book.
A
shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon and Goodreads.
