White Smoke

Last year, Marigold almost died of an overdose. To get a fresh start, her family—mother Raquel, stepdad Alec, brother Sam, and stepsister Piper—is moving to the Midwest town of Cedarville. They move into a newly renovated house, but the rest of Maple Street is full of burnt, abandoned houses. As if that wasn’t unsettling enough, weird things begin to happen inside their home. Doors opening and closing, lights flickering, items moving around, and going missing. Weird smells and creepy noises. Marigold starts to suspect that they aren’t welcome in Cedarville, or in this house.

Marigold is the first-person narrator, and her honest, confessional tone sets the mood for this haunting tale. She reveals her past slowly, her narration mimicking her reluctance to get close to anyone after her ex-boyfriend’s betrayal led to her overdose. She struggles with past addiction, adjusting to a new place, making friends, and dealing with lasting anxiety and paranoia caused by a bedbug infestation. As she navigates these challenges, Marigold is also trying to reinvent herself. Though she can be selfish at times, she is ultimately a deeply relatable teenage girl, and through her narration, readers will feel her anxiety as if it were their own.

Marigold works with her brother Sam to uncover who is haunting their house. She cares deeply for him, and their relationship is at the heart of the story. Sam is the only one in the family who truly understands her, and Marigold learns to apply the care that he gives her to the people around her. The difficult process of Marigold connecting with her stepdad and stepsister creates a story about a flawed family that must rediscover how to care for one another.

Marigold also forms connections with Yusef and Erika. Yusef, her neighbor and reluctant crush, tells her of the town’s history, revealing that white families came in and drove out the Black community, sending fathers and brothers to prison on made-up drug charges. His optimism in the face of terrible circumstances forces Marigold to realize how lucky she is to have her family, even if she doesn’t like them all the time. Marigold receives a cold shoulder as the new girl, but Erika helps her settle into high school. Erika also has a painful past, but her humor and lighthearted perspective balance out Marigold’s pessimism. Marigold remains reluctant to create deep connections with anyone but is won over by Yusef and Erika’s friendship.

Trying to balance normal teenage problems with her increasingly unsettling house, Marigold discovers that this haunting might be a sign of deep-seated corruption within Cedarville’s leadership, one that threatens to eradicate what is left of the Black community. While eerie and suspenseful, White Smoke is not a typical ghost story. The connections made between the threats to the Black community and the haunting of Marigold’s home reveal the harm of prejudices, especially when intolerant people are in power. Marigold learns the importance of family and community, as well as the strength that people can achieve when they work together, whether for harm or for good.

White Smoke is a thrilling page-turner, but at times it moves too fast, leaving these connections feeling surface-level and resulting in a conclusion that feels rushed. Despite this, Jackson’s use of language to create a horror story, which vividly conjures images of a haunted house, is impressive and engaging.  Readers interested in racism and its impact on individuals should also consider reading Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi.

 Sexual Content

• When Marigold meets Yusef, she notices how attractive he is. “He’s a rich mocha brown. The hot chocolate with coconut milk on a chilly day by the beach type of brown. God, I hope these stupid flowery words dancing around in my head aren’t leaking out my mouth.”
• Tamara, Marigold’s best friend, teases Marigold about Yusef’s flirting. “Dude, he was totally hitting on you, literally. I mean, he talked gardening, that’s practically foreplay.”
• Marigold jokes with Erika about the town speculating that they are in a relationship. “Well, you ain’t bad looking. I’d smash.”
• Marigold and Yusef talk about the girls who are attracted to Yusef. He reveals that he hasn’t had sex. Marigold says, “Well, anything is possible, especially when you’re having sex. . . Wait, are you seriously telling me you’re a virgin?”

Violence

• When Marigold and Yusef first meet, he accidentally punches her in the face. As she’s leaving her house, Marigold “throw[s] the door open, running right into a fist.” She ices her head, but she isn’t injured, just bruised.
• Marigold has a nightmare where her stepsister Piper attacks her. “[Piper’s] little hands tighten around my throat, thumbs pressing against my voice box. . . I strain, unable to feel my legs, my arms, or anything.” She wakes up right after this.
• Another mother accuses Marigold’s mother of allowing Piper to hang out in abandoned houses. “Do y’all know how dangerous them houses are? Besides them falling apart, you know what kind of people be in there squatting, smoking, and shooting up drugs? These girls could get raped and we’d be none the wiser!” There’s not actually anyone squatting in the houses, but Piper stops going there after this.
• Yusef tells Marigold the story of the first Devil’s Night (or Halloween) fire when Seth Reed, a white boy, went missing. “Then, after Devil’s Night, after they found Seth Reed. . . some folks from the Wood . . . they cornered Jon Jon and set his house on fire. [Jon Jon’s mother,] Ms. Suga, living next door, ran inside to save him. They never came out. Burned alive in the house.” Jon Jon and his mother are black, highlighting the race-based history of the town.
• Jon Jon and Ms. Suga, who are alive and have been living in Marigold’s basement, attack Marigold. Jon Jon chokes her. “Something ropes around my throat, yoking me, and I catch air before landing on my back.” He also punches her in the stomach before Yusef tackles him.
• Suga hits Marigold with a broom. “The broom whacks me in the face, and I fly backward down the stairs with a scream. My head bangs against the hardwood floor, tailbone hitting the bottom step.” She is seriously concussed and passes out.
• During the fight, Ms. Suga attacks Marigold and bites her. “The old woman burst out of the closet, screeching, her arms flailing. Stunned by the sight, I’m frozen in place until she leaps, sinking two sharp teeth into my shoulder.” Marigold’s injuries are treated by EMTs.
• Suga kidnaps Piper and ties her up in one of the abandoned houses. “Wrists and ankles bound, mouth gagged. Her eyes bulge as she screams through the dirty rag.” Marigold and Jon Jon rescue her; Piper is uninjured.
• The town, incited into a mob, sets the house that Marigold, Piper, and Jon Jon are in on fire. Marigold’s ankle is injured while trying to get out. “I kick furiously. . . my ankle covered in blood where the wood sliced into me.” Jon Jon bandages it. Then, Piper and Marigold escape to Yusef’s house, where they clean her wounds.

Drugs and Alcohol

• Before the story, Marigold was struggling with addiction to Percocet and overdosed on fentanyl-laced weed. “Last thing I really remember was walking into my room. [My brother] found me foaming at the mouth. Turns out the weed was laced with fentanyl . . . OD’ing is the type of mistake you never shake.”
• Marigold struggles with her cravings for weed. “I need a blunt, a brownie, a gummy. . . hell, I’d take a contact high right about now, I’m so desperate for numbness.”
• Marigold mentions her addiction to Percocet throughout the book. For example, when she starts hearing strange noises and smelling strange scents, she thinks: “If I were still on the Percs, I could’ve blamed it on a crazy trip.”
• At a party, Yusef and Marigold drink. They are both underage. “Yusef pours [them] two vodkas and orange juices. . . [Marigold’s] not used to being at parties sober.”
• At the same party, Marigold smokes weed that Erika gives her. “I grab the spliff, inhale hard, letting the smoke take up every corner of my lungs before exhaling with an ‘ahhh.’” She gets high.
• Marigold’s mother forces her to take a drug test. “With a sigh, I grab the cup and head for the bathroom. The test is going to be negative, but just the thought that Mom felt she had to give it to me cuts deeper than a knife.”
• Marigold is growing weed for herself in the backyard of one of the abandoned houses. She gets Tamara to send her the seeds. “I’m not asking you to send me a pack of blunts. Just some seeds! . . . Tamara, I need this.” Eventually, Yusef finds the garden and forces Marigold to remove it.

Language

• Profanity is used regularly. Profanity includes hella, damn, shit, bitch, tit, ass, fuck, and dick.

Supernatural

• There is a town legend that Ms. Suga haunts the house where Marigold’s family lives. Yusef says, “It’s just that everyone is surprised you’re still alive, with your house being haunted and everything. . . It’s this creature, a demon woman, who comes in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping, cast some type of spell on you.”
• Marigold wakes up to a shadowy figure in her room. She calls Yusef, thinking it’s a demon. Marigold says, “Maybe a demon. It’s in the corner, holding my blanket.” The shadow turns out to be Jon Jon sleepwalking, but Marigold doesn’t find this out until the end of the book.
• Marigold lists out the proof that her house is haunted. “Well, except for the whole basement door incident. And the wrinkled hand reaching into the shower. And the lights going out . . . That funky stench is not just coming from the basement. . . Doors opening and slamming on their own, the cabinets in the kitchen.” Marigold and Sam both believe that their house is haunted. At one point, they hear what they believe is a ghost, mimicking Sam’s voice.
• Marigold and Sam believe that Piper is possessed because she has been acting strangely and getting angry often. Sam says, “We’ll need proof Piper’s possessed or the church won’t perform an exorcism on her.”

Spiritual Content

• There is a pastor, Scott Clark, who preaches on television, and passages from his sermons are regularly interspersed throughout the novel. “And so I say to you, cast the wickedness out of your heart for the good of thy neighbor, cleanse thy soul with fire!”
• At times, the passages are connected with the story but are more often used to represent the corruption of the town leaders that seeps into the church as well. For example, one of the longer passages reads, “. . . And children of God, I’m to provide the seeds that you will plant, and you will do the watering. Do not forsake his words. For the devil is among you! He has poisoned your minds, makes you feel you can’t trust the very people he put to care for you. . . ” This refers to the scam seeds Scott Clark sells that never grow.
• Marigold’s family are “spiritualists” who “just believe in a higher power.”

by Abigail Clark