We're Safe When We're Alone
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Son is real. Son was saved from a life he cannot remember. Son is a human in a mythical world of ghosts. This is what Father tells him.
Son has lived his entire life inside the mansion. He is a good child. He reads, practices piano, studies, and watches ghosts tend the farmland through a window in the attic. When Father decides it is time for Son to venture outside, Son’s desire to please Father overpowers his fear, and he must contend with questions he never wanted to face. What are the relentlessly grinning ghosts hiding? Has a ghost taken control of Father? What answers or horrors lie in the forest? And who will stop the mysterious encroaching shadows? Nghiem Tran’s debut inverts the haunted house tale, shaping it into a moving exploration of loss, coming of age in a collapsing world, and the battle between isolation and assimilation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tran's magnetic debut centers on two people struggling to exist in a world inhabited by ghosts. Rescued from certain death by Father and taken from a life he cannot remember, Son spends his days in a mansion, reading his collection of books as he anxiously awaits Father's return every evening from his mysterious job. They are the only humans around—the mansion is surrounded by ghostly creatures whom Son has learned to view with repulsion and distrust. But when Father suggests that Son must venture outside the mansion and interact with the ghosts to survive, Son becomes hostile and paranoid, refusing to tend to their farmland with the creatures, as Father does, or play with the spectral children who request entrance to the mansion. As Son is slowly forced to engage with the ghosts, he discovers that he and Father hold the key to maintaining order in their world, which is quickly unraveling under threat from mysterious shadows. The enigmatic characters captivate, even as the plot occasionally grows convoluted, and Son's narrative voice expertly blends childlike naivete with stultifying obsession. The result is a haunting and evocative reflection on the meaning of love and memory.
