The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts

Laura Tillman has undertaken the kind of work that only the rarest of reporters actively seeks: she has shown us that even in the darkest corners of society - and of the human soul - there is beauty and hope to be found, and there are no absolutes despite how eager we might be to ascribe them. In the process, she paints a perfect picture of true journalism: its labor, its obsessiveness, its challenges, its toll, and also its value. I can’t fathom how difficult this story was to tell, nor can I measure its greater meaning now that it has been told. - Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts takes as its subject the long shadow of an unthinkable crime-suggesting that thinking about the unthinkable might be a necessary part of the human enterprise. This remarkable book is built of diligent reporting and sensitive reckoning; its questions haunted me long after I finished reading it. The invisible root system of social injustice that dwells beneath our justice system is made more visible here, thanks to Laura Tillman’s passionate work and her willing heart. - Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

All the issues that plague those living in poverty are in evidence in this story of love and loss in Brownsville, Texas. Laura Tillman delicately excavates the lives at the center of this tragic tale, providing insights into the people and the place that made them. She plumbs the American class divide so astutely and so sensitively, it’s near impossible not to see the humanity even in those we would have previously called monsters. To better understand the social issues at play here and across the country, please, read this book! - Jesmyn Ward, author of Men We Reaped and Salvage the Bones

The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts is as tragic as it is ultimately tender. With stirringly poetic prose, Laura Tillman has written a story that will haunt you with the despair it reveals. Painstakingly researched and told with an unflinching eye for detail, she knows this world of the border. - Oscar Casares, Author of Brownsville

Extraordinary… It is so exciting to see a young writer of such high intelligence and passionate unremitting commitment to a subject engage on this risky plane of investigation. The resulting book is a small masterpiece, contributing something very new, profound, and badly needed to our culture. - Suzannah Lessard, author of The Architect of Desire

Guaranteed to keep you hooked until the early hours, [a] chilling page-turner … Insightful and harrowing - Vogue.co.uk