by Jeffrey Ford
First published 2008
The narrator dreads starting sixth grade as summer ends in 1960s Long Island. His father works constantly, his mother drinks and paints pictures no one sees, and his older brother Jim alternates between bullying and protecting him. Their younger sister Mary speaks in strange voices and acts like different people. The boys spend hours in the basement with Botch Town, their cardboard model of the neighborhood complete with clay figures of everyone they know. When a prowler begins stalking their community, the brothers decide to help catch him. But deaths and disappearances start plaguing the real neighborhood. A man in a white car cruises the streets at night. The boys realize that every disturbing event matches changes Mary has secretly made to the miniature town. She moves the clay figures around when no one watches, and reality shifts to follow her alterations.
Genres: coming-of-age, suspense, mystery, contemporary, paranormal, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Long Island
Period: 1960s
289 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: mental-illness