“Yearbook editor Ellie survives a slew of tornadoes that rage through her hometown, devastating her Ohio high school and killing dozens of people in her community. She is haunted by the ghosts of her best friends and by the living, too: all those left behind must cope with the “gone away” pieces in their lives. A chance encounter with one ghost leads Ellie to discover a way to free the spirits who have been lingering since the storm, and she learns that she’s not the only one seeing the ghosts–it’s a town-wide epidemic.”
Youngstown Playhouse Theatre
About the Novel
From Stonewall Honor author Christopher Barzak comes a haunting novel of love and loss, in which a series of tornadoes rips through a small midwest town, forever altering the lives of those who live there.
Ellie heads up her high school yearbook, and until the tornadoes come, her biggest worry is how to raise enough money to print them. But since the day when a rash of powerful tornadoes touched down in Newfoundland, Ohio–killing more than half of the students in her school, not to mention dozens more people throughout the town–she’s been haunted: by the ghosts of her best friends, by the boy next door, even by her boyfriend. And the living are haunting her too, all those left behind in the storm’s wake to cope with the “gone away” pieces in their lives. A chance encounter with one ghost leads Ellie to discover a way to free the spirits that have been lingering since the storm, and she learns that she’s not the only one seeing the ghosts–it’s a town-wide epidemic.