Wells Without Water: A Novel

The author of Sky Full of Elephants returns with an evocative, harrowing novel about the bonds of community and the power of redemption, as the disillusioned son of a preacher returns home and uncovers a supernatural force taking hold—perfect for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Tananarive Due.

When a sweet, unassuming fifteen-year-old walks into the local police station attempting to kill everyone inside, Carmichael Franklin, a social justice advocate and legal investigator whose hope for a better world is masked by a deep layer of cynicism, is called home to Loblolly Grove to find out what happened.

Carm returns and finds his community crumbling. While the underfunded “Lo” has always had its problems, its residents were once as close as family. A towering apartment block, Carm learns its caretaker Ma Esther has been murdered, and a rising tension, coupled with strange outbursts of violence, has seemingly infected everyone. Carm’s brother, Everett, who has followed in their father’s footsteps and is now the Bishop, brings Carm to see a young girl he believes is possessed, unleashing an action-packed series of events that transport Carm across time.

Wells Without Water is an incendiary, poetic, horrifying, and, above all, deeply felt adventure through the lives and loves of the Lo. Cebo Campbell has written a literary horror novel with the heat and rhythm of a Black sermon and the surreal, myth-soaked atmosphere of Southern gothic at its most hallucinatory. As the Lo teeters between rot or revolution, Carmichael is forced to confront a spiritual evil that has plagued humanity from its very beginnings. Wells Without Water brings to light the magical roots of Nat Turner’s rebellion, the power of religion when put in the wrong hands, and the cosmic horror of slavery itself.