Ghosts That Linger
The sequel to Ghosts from the NurseryTwo books, taken together, tell the story of how childhood poverty, early trauma, and racism cost us all.
In Ghosts That Linger’s own words…
“Ghosts from the nursery do not disappear with childhood. They linger — in courtrooms, in cells, in the space between what was done to a child and what the child, now grown, does to others.”
“We sentence the man. But the record reads like the biography of a boy no one protected.”
“Jerry’s story is not an anomaly. It is a map — of every place the system could have turned toward repair and chose punishment instead.”
“Restoration begins the moment we stop asking what is wrong with you, and start asking what happened to you — and what happens now.”
“Mass incarceration creates profits not only for the corporations owning private prisons and the corporations that use prison labor to enhance their profit, but for many other private industries that are awarded contracts for necessary services, including meals, health services, telecommunications, and commissaries, each of which is highly profitable. The privatization of these services creates a monopoly regarding prices for prisoners and their families who can only purchase goods from these corporations and leads to price gouging for a captive population that can ill afford it.”
Advance excerpts — subject to revision before publication
First, there was Ghosts from the Nursery
Robin Karr-Morse & Meredith S. Wiley / Tracing the roots of violence
Buy the first book →
When Ghosts from the Nursery first appeared, it asked a question most of public life still avoids: what if the violence we punish in adults was written, in part, before those adults could speak?
Drawing on emerging neuroscience, the book traces how experiences in the earliest months of life — the tenderness given or withheld, the chaos witnessed, the fear absorbed — shapes the developing architecture of a child’s brain. Abuse, neglect, and trauma are not memories that fade. They are injuries that organize how a nervous system meets the world, and how the child, years later, behaves inside it.
To make the science human, the authors followed children whose earliest years were marked by violence. One of them they called Jeffrey — a pseudonym for a real boy, born into circumstances no child chooses.
Praise from the first book
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“Ghosts from the Nursery shows the heavy price society pays for child abuse and neglect. This book skillfully takes a very real and frightening issue and encourages us to work harder to end it.”— Senator Ted Kennedy
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“A timely classic and an urgent call to alarm.”— Dr. T. Berry Brazelton
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“This is an eye-opening book.”— Marian Wright Edelman
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“This is a clear, well-researched book that deserves wide reading.”— Matilda Raffa Cuomo
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“The universally important topics in this book about human development and the very early origins of violence are successfully presented in a remarkably clear, interesting and understandable manner. Don’t look away.”— Dr. Vincent Felitti
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“It is a rare combination of skill, insight and intelligence that produced this book.”— Dr. Bruce Perry
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“An ominous and persuasive study of when violence starts in child development — and the preventive measures to stop it.”— New York Times
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“A deeply disturbing wake-up call.”— Publishers Weekly
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“Karr-Morse and Wiley boldly raise some tough issues.”— Seattle Times
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“An alarming book with national scope.”— Portland Oregonian
Ghosts That Linger
Cover art to be revealed
Karr-Morse · Wiley
Final cover to be revealed with the release date
Ghosts That Linger continues the story
Ghosts That Linger tells the second half of the story we told about a boy in Ghosts from the Nursery — a life carried from an unprotected childhood into incarceration and an early death. The book documents how our cultural framing of wrongdoing — in terms of punishment and retribution — fails: 40% recidivism rates are a clear indictment.
Beginning with young offenders, the book exposes the continual failings of our current carceral approach: the creation of mental illness and addiction, and huge losses of income to families and communities. The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration and consistently ranks among the highest in the developed world.
The prison-industrial complex, public and private, generates huge profits for large corporations and places the burden of cost on individuals, families, and communities — a burden now expanding to include immigrants, men, women, and children.
There are proven, cost-effective alternatives — remediation, rehabilitation, and education — which document decreased crime, violence, and recidivism; enhance family and community health; and reduce the burden on taxpayers.
What people are saying now about Ghosts That Linger
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“Victims of crime will find themselves gaining a new understanding of perpetrators and of the criminal justice system and its weaknesses. The authors lay out information that every legislator should be made aware of and that educators should put into their arsenal of tools to protect their charges and give them a better shot at life.”
— Janice Grieshaber Geddes
Founder of the Jenna Foundation and author of Jenna’s Law
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“In Ghosts That Linger, the authors honor the life of the incarcerated man whose story first inspired Ghosts from the Nursery while exposing the enduring human costs of a carceral system that too often profits from suffering. Through one remarkable life story, they illuminate the profound connections between childhood adversity, poverty, mental health, incarceration, and justice, making this a powerful and essential read for anyone committed to a more humane future.”
— Sheri Platt-Wiedenhoefer
Executive Director, Community Justice Center
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“This book spoke to me deeply having been raised in a tumultuous working-class neighborhood and experiencing firsthand the pain of discrimination and hate crimes, making its exploration of how childhood environments can shape, and sometimes constrain, the course of a life profoundly personal. I found this book inspiring because it transforms a heartbreaking story into a passionate call for prevention, compassion, and a society willing to see children not for what they have endured, but for what they can become.”
— Diana Fishbein
Senior Scientist, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, and President, National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives
Two voices, one unfinished story
Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley wrote Ghosts from the Nursery together — and never stopped following the boy inside it. Ghosts That Linger is their return to the story that would not let them go.
The story isn’t over. Be there when it continues.
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