The Turner House

The Turner House is the debut novel of African-American author Angela Flournoy, first published in 2015. Focusing on a Detroit family with thirteen children as it struggles to cope with the economic troubles, the narrative spans from the 1920s to the 1980s. The house they live in becomes a character in the story and serves as an anchor for this large African-American family. Although Flournoy has family from Detroit, she did not live in the city personally and so conducted extensive research. Both critics and Flournoy herself have compared this book the work of Zora Neale Hurston, as it explores themes of family ties, race, poverty, addiction, and hauntings both real and imagined. It was highly acclaimed financial success and was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction. Flournoy also won the 2016 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

The Turner House begins in the 1920s with the story of Francis and Viola Turner, former sharecroppers who worked their way out of poverty and moved from Arkansas to Detroit where they eventually raise a family of thirteen children in a house on Yarrow Street. This surprisingly large house—larger than Francis and Viola had ever seen in the South—gives them hope for the future. However, in 1958, life take a sinister turn when their oldest son Charles encounters a ghost, also called a “haint,” that tries to drag him out the window. Fourteen-year-old Charles has just moved into a small room that he hoped would give him some space from his siblings at night. He is saved by Francey, the oldest daughter, who rescues him from the room before the ghost can kill him. By the time Francis arrives, the haint is gone and Francis tells Charles that haints don’t exist in Detroit. Charles sees the haint again a few times in his life, but he never knows why his father was so confident haints don’t live in Detroit until the end of the novel.

The Yarrow Street house sits vacant in the 1980s, still owned by the family but with no permanent residents. This turns out to be lucky for Lelah, the youngest Turner sibling, who has a gambling addiction. She’s been suspended from her job because she owes money to many coworkers and has lost her apartment after gambling away her rent money. Forced to grab what she can after being evicted, she drives to the house on Yarrow and moves in, looking after her grandson Bobby while her daughter Brianne supports the family. Francis’ story, as told by his elderly wife, begins in the 1940s when he was on the path to a religious vocation, living in the church and being mentored by Reverend Tufts. He lost his father when he was young and was dedicated to the church. He had often felt abandoned by his father, and when he first started seeing a ghost he assumed it was his father. He wasn’t scared of it and compared it to the Angel Gabriel. However, when he told Reverend Tufts he did not get the response he was expecting. Reverend Tufts was deeply suspicious of the supernatural, and halted Francis’ ascent to the ministry. Instead, he sent him to work at a church in Detroit, forcing him to leave Viola and Charles behind. Francis is too proud to beg for a reverend position, so he instead looks for work elsewhere and begins building a life in Detroit.



Francis struggles in Detroit, staying at a boarding house and having an affair with the owner, Odella Withers. When Odella’s husband returns from the war unexpectedly early, Francis finds himself alone and without options. He’s filled with guilt and realizes that he never should have left his wife and son behind. He saves up enough money to bring them to Detroit. What he doesn’t know is that Reverend Tufts has talked to Viola and told her about Francis seeing haints. He calls Francis a heathen for thinking that God could send something like this. He then proceeds to seduce Viola and touch her in inappropriate ways, and Viola is so lonely she encourages him. When Francis comes to take her to Detroit and confesses his infidelity, she accepts his apology and forgives him, but never breathes a word to him of her dalliance with Reverend Tufts. They both resolve to support each other and make their marriage work, and they have twelve more children. They’re mostly happy together, and when the whole family gets together for major events, the old house is filled to the brim. Viola eventually tells Charles that his father had seen haints as well, and they hadn’t told him because Francis was disturbed by his experiences and didn’t want to reopen those old wounds and feelings of uncertainty. They felt it would be easier for Charles to simply doubt his own sanity and move on. However, when Charles learns this, he feels a sense of validation that lifts the weight he’s felt all these years. He’s finally able to relax and enjoy his life with Tina.

Angela Flournoy is an American author whose debut novel The Turner House was critically acclaimed. In addition to the book awards, she was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and was named as one of the National Book Awards’ “5 Under 35” list.