Like Whitehead's The Intuitionist Alyssa Cole's When No One Is Watching or Zakiya Dalila
Harris' The Other Black Girl Reprieve straddles genres in the best possible way. . . . Sure to
spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land. -LOS ANGELES TIMESAn eventual
American classic that is unrelenting in its beauty and incisive cultural critique. - KIESE
LAYMONRecommended by New York Times - Los Angeles Times - NPR - Today - Esquire - O Quarterly -
Boston Globe - Chicago Tribune - Harper's Bazaar - Shondaland - Thrillist - The Millions -
Crimereads - XTRA - Tor - Literary Hub - and more!A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary
novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact
haunted escape room-a provocative exploration of capitalism hate politics racial fetishism
and our obsession with fear as entertainment.On April 27 1997 four contestants make it to the
final cell of the Quigley House a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln Nebraska made
famous for its monstrosities booby-traps and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can
endure these horrors without shouting the safe word reprieve they'll win a substantial cash
prize-a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house's long history. But
before they can complete the challenge a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the
contestants.Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra
Brown a teenager who's been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her
father Leonard Grandton a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of
toxic entanglements and Jaidee Charoensuk a gay international student who came to the United
States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character's journey unfurls
and overlaps deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed
forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a
horrifying catastrophe.An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade
Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to
present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.
