Eleanor Newton wasn\u2019t able to be with her grandmother three years ago, when she died alone in the hospital during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The loss lingers, especially because Grandma\u2019s ghost appeared to Eleanor soon after her death, cryptically declaring \u201cI\u2019m early.\u201d Trapped at home in lockdown and anticipating Grandma\u2019s return, Eleanor recalls that \u201cThe world outside shrank. The world inside grew to fill the space that remained.\u201d New neighbor Justin Fletcher, an 11-year-old from Greenwich who reads Black, helps white-presenting Eleanor break out of her shell. One day, while visiting a newly uncovered Roman mosaic of Orpheus and Eurydice beneath the London Bridge Tube station, Eleanor and Justin are alone when a wall gives way, water fills the tunnel, and they drown. They find themselves in a forested underworld, facing a forked path. Eleanor\u2019s route ends at Eventide House, a seemingly idyllic boarding school that\u2019s shrouded in mystery. Her efforts to uncover Eventide\u2019s secrets only lead her deeper into the afterlife\u2019s many-layered strangeness. While the story imagines one child\u2019s encounter with death, it also powerfully captures the existential feeling of loss and unreality associated with the pandemic isolation. The dreamlike settings and Eleanor\u2019s expressive narration lend the story a gentleness that makes its challenging premise memorable and emotionally manageable. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eleanor Newton wasn\u2019t able to be with her grandmother three years ago, when she died alone in the hospital during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The loss lingers, especially because Grandma\u2019s ghost appeared to Eleanor soon after her death, cryptically declaring \u201cI\u2019m early.\u201d Trapped at home in lockdown and anticipating Grandma\u2019s return, Eleanor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}