A resonant story about a black family in Brooklyn, We Are a Haunting opens with adolescent son Colly mourning his mother Key, who has died of cancer. Colly chats with his mother as if she is still alive and the conversations chain him to the life he once had. The rest of the family is similarly bereaved. Colly's grandmother Audrey is struggling to manage her own memories of her daughter while staying afloat financially. His father is barely there, a somber outline in a chair. His stubborn sister Toya spends as much time as possible at Nana's (Audrey's) instead of home with her father. Author Tyriek White invites the reader to absorb a family in trauma and to luxuriate in the Brooklyn of their lives: Gersh Park, Broadway Junction, the 3 train, Stanley Avenue.

Of the three timelines that saturate the story — 1988 when Key begins her career as a doula (see Beyond the Book), 2007 ...