Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2011
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The innocence of childhood,
the unknown of adulthood,
and the search for forgiveness...
Emily Stewart is the girl who claims to stand between the living and the dead. During the quiet summer of 1925, she and her brother, Michael, are thirteen-year-old twins - privileged, precocious, wandering aimlessly around their family's estate. One day, Emily discovers that she can secretly crack her ankle in such a way that a sound appears to burst through the stillness of midair. Emily and Michael gather the neighborhood children to fool them with these "spirit knockings."
Soon, however, this game of contacting the dead creeps into a world of adults still reeling from World War I. When the twins find themselves dabbling in the uncertain territory of human grief and family secrets - knock, knock - everything spins wildly out of control.
"Starred Review. The subtle and moving portrayal of people in the grip of powerful emotions that overwhelm rational thinking will haunt readers long after they put the book down." - Publishers Weekly
"An intricate yet beautifully told story that is less about ghosts and more about secrets and how destructive they can be." - Kirkus Reviews
"With all the trappings of a gothic novel - big house, secret passageways, and family secrets - the quieter but more moving story of a young girl coming of age struggles to be heard." - BookPage
"Elwork's debut incorporates elements of World War I and early 20th-century spiritualism that will appeal to history enthusiasts, but it is his somber tone and emotional evocation of loss and heartbreak that will win over readers of literary fiction." - Library Journal
"Beautifully written... Masterful... If writing can be thought of as a sort of telepathy - a rousing and rendering of spirits - then Elwork is as talented a clairvoyant as any you're ever likely to encounter." - Scott Smith, author of The Ruins and A Simple Plan
"A haunting Gothic fable full of the eerie magic of childhood, where games can so easily transform into something else and where solutions to adult grief and loss seem possible. Strangely beautiful, always surprising, The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead shimmers right at the edge between wishful thinking and delusion, and every so often slips into nightmare. I was entranced." - Suzanne Berne, author of A Crime in the Neighborhood
This information about The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul Elwork graduated from Temple University and earned a master's degree in English from Arcadia University. This is his first novel. He lives in Philadelphia.
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