Summer in the House of the Departed

I have always had a fascination with ghost towns and abandoned places and have visited many, including Roanoke Island - the disappearing colony that remains one of the biggest mysteries in American history. 

In the opening words of Summer in the House of the Departed, the narrator’s grandmother, Brady, tells us that his grandmother disappeared in 1981 when he was 8 years old, “taking an entire Texas town with her”, just like the Roanoke colony, about which she was writing a book. 

The first half of the novella follows Brady and his granny, who has end-stage cancer, in 1981, where he spends his summers with her in a house she bought because she believed her husband’s spirit is there. Brady believes it, too, although he doesn’t see his grandfather the way he sees the other ghosts in the house. When not working on her Roanoke project, Granny shares stories about the many photos she’s collected as an occult researcher. Brady, who prefers living in fantasy books, feels most at home with Granny and her stories and always regrets returning to his parents and is devastated when his grandmother disappears. 

In the second half, Brady, now sick with cancer himself, returns to the house in 2025 to find out what really happened to his grandmother and to make his peace with it and his life since. 

Summer in the House of the Departed by Josh Rountree is a haunting tale about grief and how it affects those left behind, and it’s a beautiful story about the bond between a boy and his grandmother and the stories they share, and spending a little time with them was a bittersweet pleasure. 

Thank you to the author and his publisher Psychopomp for the advance copy for my honest review. Pub date: 8/26/25

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