Ghost Town

The novel alternates between two timelines. In the present day, first-person sections follow Jay Perry, a writer in his sixties living in Los Angeles, as he reckons with an invitation to return to his hometown. In the past, third-person sections follow thirteen-year-old Jimmy Perrini through a pivotal summer in the early 1970s in Creamwood, New Jersey, a summer defined by his mother's death, dangerous friendships, first love, and a catastrophic fire.

Jay receives an email from the mayor of Creamwood, Jennifer Rodriguez-Manzoni, inviting him to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Frank J. Perrini Memorial Complex, named after his late father, and to read at the public library as the town's only famous writer. The mayor addresses him as "Jimmy Perrini," the childhood name he abandoned when he adopted the professional alias Jay Perry. Jay does not reply but rereads the email obsessively, disturbed by how much pain the names "Jimmy" and "Creamwood" still cause him.

The narrative shifts to third person. The Perrinis consist of Jimmy's mother Betty, his father Frank, a union welder and volunteer fireman, his older sister Denise, and Jimmy. They live in Creamwood, a working-class town of five thousand, almost entirely white, Catholic, and Italian American. Black people can work there but cannot buy homes or rent apartments, a product of racism, white flight, and redlining that Jimmy does not question as a child.

Jimmy is thirteen when Betty dies of lung cancer. His family shielded him from the severity of her illness, so her death hits him as a sudden shock. On the night she dies, Jimmy is playing in the Little League Championship Final. His cousin Wayne, a near-stranger who recently moved next door with his wife Nilda, arrives at the ballpark to deliver the news. Wayne and Nilda live in a house on Morgan Street owned by Wayne's father, Uncle Al, a wealthy businessman estranged from Jimmy's father.

At the wake, Jimmy is disturbed by his mother's appearance in the coffin. He hears her voice telling him, "That's not me," and slips outside, where Eddie Fitzpatrick, a stringy-haired older teenager known as a burnout, pulls up in a powder-blue Chevy Vega and offers him a ride. Back home, Jimmy's father sits beside him on the stoop and admits he wanted to sneak out too. When Jimmy returns to school, his homeroom teacher, Mr. Kazmierski, called Kaz, gives Jimmy his phone number and warns him that Wayne is "not the kind of role model you need right now."

The Perrini household unravels over the summer. Jimmy's father works constant overtime and goes out most evenings. Wayne and Nilda grow closer to the siblings, offering meals and company. Jimmy volunteers at the Creamwood Summer Rec program, where the arts and crafts counselor is Olivia Jean Riley, the smartest student in Creamwood High history. Olivia's father and baby brother were killed in a car accident when she was seven; her mother has an alcohol addiction. When a memory of his mother overwhelms Jimmy one morning, Olivia tells him there is a way to talk to dead people.

Jimmy's evenings are aimless. His old friends seem distant, and rumors circulate that his best friend Greg Cellucci has gotten together with Janie Randowski, the girl Jimmy kissed at a school dance and still likes. When loneliness overwhelms him, he walks the streets until Eddie finds him in the Vega. Their nighttime drives become a ritual, fueled by marijuana and Eddie's rambling stories.

Three first-person interludes trace Jay's literary career: a well-reviewed debut novel, Orphan Song; a story collection haunted by ghosts; and the transformation of Ghost Teacher from a rejected dark horror novel into a bestselling children's series and TV show. Jay identifies his recurring themes as "Ghosts and Orphans. The ways we're abandoned and never left alone." His sister Denise calls to pressure him to attend the ceremony. Jay resists, but his wife Molly learns about the invitation and is hurt he kept it from her.

Olivia introduces Jimmy to the Ouija board. Because her apartment is off-limits and Jimmy's house is risky, they use the empty home of the Randowski family, where Olivia is close with Janie's older sister Peg and has a key. The pointer spells B-O-B, and a spirit identifies itself as "Uncle Bob," an entity unknown to either of them. Olivia asks Uncle Bob to find Betty Perrini, but the spirit departs without responding. Afterward, Olivia initiates a kissing lesson that escalates before she pulls away.

Meanwhile, Hector Lopez, Nilda's cousin, arrives to stay with Wayne and Nilda. As a Black man in the all-white town, his presence unsettles Jimmy's father and the neighborhood. Father Paul, the family's young parish priest, takes Jimmy to the beach. Eddie introduces Jimmy to Leonard, a McDonald's cashier who sells marijuana. One night, Eddie reveals that his uncle Bobby Eberhart, who originally owned the Vega, murdered his fiancée and hanged himself in Rahway Prison. Jimmy realizes Uncle Bob from the Ouija board is Bobby Eberhart. Eddie then drives the wrong way onto the Garden State Parkway, nearly killing them both.

Jimmy breaks off his friendship with Eddie, but Eddie and Leonard retaliate by harassing his friends and making threatening remarks about Hector living on Morgan Street. At a Chinese restaurant, Hector asks if Jimmy's father would sponsor him as a welding apprentice. Kaz appears with his pregnant wife and confronts the group, telling Jimmy his mother would be heartbroken to see him "with these . . . people." Later, Jimmy's father reluctantly agrees to inquire about sponsoring Hector.

On the last weekend of summer, Jimmy prepares for a sleepover with Olivia at the Randowskis' house. He spots the Vega lurking outside and takes a winding route through backyards to avoid detection. A second Ouija session connects not with Jimmy's mother but with Olivia's dead father, who tells Olivia he is proud of her. Jimmy and Olivia's physical encounter escalates, but when Jimmy finds a condom Olivia left for him, he hears his mother's voice telling him firmly that he is too young. He obeys and sneaks out.

Walking home, the Vega comes squealing around a corner but roars past Jimmy without stopping. Turning onto Morgan Street, he sees flashing lights. Wayne and Nilda's house is engulfed in flames. His own house is empty. From his bedroom window, he sees his father's extension ladder propped against the burning house, reaching to a charred second-floor window. Wayne and Nilda eventually emerge from the crowd alive, but when an officer speaks to them, Nilda collapses with a howl of agony. This is the last thing Jimmy remembers before his memory goes dark.

In the epilogue, Jay returns to Creamwood alone. The town has transformed, its population now racially mixed. He tells the mayor he believes the fire was arson, set because people objected to Hector, a Black man, living on Morgan Street. At the memorial complex, a plaque explains that Frank lost his life attempting to rescue a neighbor from the fire, the only Creamwood first responder killed in the line of duty. He was forty years old. Jay meets familiar faces: Greg and Janie, now married; Kaz's daughter Cathleen; and Denise and her former boyfriend Nick Filiakis, now reunited. He reads from a new manuscript called Ghost Town. As he reads, he senses Uncle Bob's ghost hovering over an empty seat in the front row and, beside it, his mother in her lime-green funeral dress, her face blurry but her love unmistakable. Jay grips the podium, concentrates on his mother's love, and continues reading.