To my mind, Paul Elwork’s debut novel is deeply intuitive and elegant reworking of an intriguing true story. With all of the romanticism of an American fin de siècle setting but isolated from the sophisticated society depicted by Henry James and Edith Wharton, an endless summer unfolds at the Ravenwood homestead.

The story centers on the Stewart twins, Emily and Michael and their exploits into the occult. Michael is the entrepreneur of the pair and manipulates Emily’s ability to crack a joint in her leg into a new form of spiritualism called spirit knocking where she communicates with spirits. Their childhood prank draws the attention of a coterie of spinsters with names like Miss Sophia and Miss Rose but doesn’t stop there.

This novel encompasses a fascinating period of history from the end of the American civil war through the First World War till 1925 and the twins’ family history is wonderfully entertaining with many skeletons in the closet that includes an illicit affair between a slave girl and a gentleman which ends in tragedy and includes a cast of eccentrics like a charming, alcoholic uncle who appears sporadically in a heap on the verandah. This is definitely where the novel’s strength lies, for me, in Elwork’s beautiful descriptions of an idle family, whose wealth and goodness doesn’t protect them from the vagaries of fate.

Justine Douglas is from Readings Port Melbourne. The Girl Who Would Speak For The Dead is out now as an ebook and in paperback.