If the Dead Belong Here - by Carson Faust (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Longlisted for the Crook's Corner Book Prize A CrimeReads Best Debut Crime Novel

"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.

Review Quotes

Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Longlisted for the Crook's Corner Book Prize
A CrimeReads Best Debut Crime Novel

"If the Dead Belong Here is a thunderclap of a novel--fierce, lyrical, and unrelentingly intimate. Carson Faust writes across time, bloodline, and grief with mythic authority and needlepoint precision. 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. Because what needs to be carried here won't fit inside a neat arc or a clean ending. This book doesn't offer closure--it offers witness: to generational grief, to girls who vanish and those who are left to search, to the slow violence of silence, to the ways history seeps into the body and stays. What it asks in return is that you stay too."
--Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez

"Carson Faust's powerful debut novel swept me away with its glorious prose, compelling characters, and compassionate heart. Faust's story charts a course of horror and loss, with moments so terrifying I had to turn on an extra light to keep reading. Yet the structural refrain that underpins this wonder of a book always returns to love. I gladly surrendered to the ferocious brilliance of this multi-generational tale, admiring the courage of young Nadine who is a 'student to the dead.' What lingers is the thought that perhaps we all are."
--Mona Susan Power, author of A Council of Dolls

"If the Dead Belong Here reminds us to listen to the songs of the night and hold our loved ones close. Intergenerational grief and loss run through the story's DNA, but this is also a novel about intergenerational wisdom, strength, and endurance. It'll captivate you, scare you, and--if you let it--might offer more than a little healing. In this shimmering, heart-filled debut, Carson Faust establishes himself as a rare and special voice."
--Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah

"If The Dead Belong Here offers a riveting mystery and beautifully complex characters who linger long after reading. Expect a steady-handed untangling of intergenerational trauma. Expect prose that is both haunted and thrumming with life. With this hypnotic, humid, love-wrought saga, Carson Faust debuts as a literary force."
--Monica Brashears, author of House of Cotton

"A terrifying, heartfelt debut about communal responsibility, about what we owe to each other and our dead loved ones. The Crowe sisters leap off the page with their wisdom and candor, and the novel's formal experiments radiate with brilliance. Faust teaches us that there are hauntings that can save us, if we're brave enough to listen."
--Alejandro Heredia, author of Loca

"An atmospheric and haunting spiritual journey."
--CrimeReads, Best Debut Crime Novels of 2025

"Filled with ferocity and lyrical brilliance, with ghosts both real and figurative, with the histories and legacies that not only shape our present, but that we build for ourselves, If the Dead Belong Here will linger in your imagination long after the last page . . . and maybe cause you to leave an extra light on."
--BookTrib

"An arresting tale of an Indigenous family haunted by ghosts and overwhelmed by loss . . . There is much to treasure in this ambitious epic."
--Publishers Weekly

"A harrowing and lyrical debut about the costs of healing multigenerational trauma."
--Kirkus Reviews

"This honest and heartbreakingly beautiful story will immerse readers in a world where they will feel the pain but also see the hope."
--Booklist

About the Author

Carson Faust is two-spirit and an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina. He is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. His fiction has appeared in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. He lives in Minnesota.