“Fierce lyrical and unrelentingly intimate . . . This is a story about hauntings both literal
and inherited a child gone missing and the women who carry everything that came before. Faust
doesn’t just bend form—he breaks it open. —Morgan Talty national bestselling author of Night
of the Living Rez “Carson Faust debuts as a literary force." —Monica Brashears author of
House of Cotton When a young girl goes missing the ghosts of the past collide with her
family’s secrets in a mesmerizing Native American Southern Gothic When six-year-old Laurel
Taylor vanishes without a trace her family is left shattered struggling to navigate the
darkness of grief and unanswered questions. As their search turns to despair Laurel’s older
sister Nadine begins experiencing nightmares that blur the line between dream and reality
and she becomes convinced that Laurel’s disappearance could be connected to other family
tragedies. Guided by her elders Nadine sets out to uncover whether laying the ghosts to rest
is the key to finding her sister and healing her fractured family. Carson Faust captivates in
this chilling literary debut that confronts the specter of colonization and the generational
scars it leaves on Native American families. Steeped in Indigenous folklore and drawing from
the author’s own family history If the Dead Belong Here examines what it means to be
haunted—both by the supernatural and by terrors of our own making. Faust crafts a powerful
kaleidoscopic tale about the complicated legacies of violence that shape our present the
importance of honoring our past and the resilience of a family—and a people—determined to heal
from old wounds.
