Unspeakable Things

Cassie McDowell is twelve and lives in Lilydale, Minnesota, in 1980, in a town where little ever happens. She has always sensed that her family runs differently from her friends' families. Now she is starting to see how different, and how much has been kept from her.

At the same time, boys in the area begin to disappear. They come home changed. Unease in Lilydale turns to rumor and suspicion, and neighbors start pointing at one another in search of someone to blame.

The book is a coming-of-age novel with a layer of real dread underneath. Cassie narrates, and she notices far more than she can make sense of, so the reader often sees the trouble before she does. It is not built like a standard whodunit. It moves slowly, uncovering what is rotten in the town and in her household a piece at a time.

The author drew on real, unsolved disappearances that happened near her own childhood home in central Minnesota. The tone is uneasy throughout, and the book is concerned with what families and whole communities agree never to say aloud.