Ramona Emerson is a Dine writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She has a bachelor's in Media Arts from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. After starting in forensic videography, she embarked upon a career as a photographer, writer, and editor. She is an Emmy nominee, a Sundance Native Lab Fellow, a Time-Warner Storyteller Fellow, a Tribeca All-Access Grantee and a WGBH Producer Fellow. In 2020, Emerson was appointed to the Governor's Council on Film and Media Industries for the State of New Mexico. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she and her husband, the producer Kelly Byars, run their production company Reel Indian Pictures. Shutter is her first novel.
Praise for Shutter
A Barnes & Noble Monthly Pick
Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award
Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
Finalist for the 2023 PEN Open Book Award
Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Finalist for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2022 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel
Nominated for the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel
Nominated for the 2023 Strand Magazine Award for Best Debut
Nominated for the Barry Award for Best Debut Mystery or Crime
Novel
The Boston Globe Best Books of the Year
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
CrimeReads Best Horror Novels of the Year
A South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Mystery Books of the Year
An Orange County Register Best Mystery Books of the Year
Outside magazine 10 Best Books of the Year
Book & Film Globe Best Books of the Year
A Summer 2023 Indie Next Pick for Reading Groups
An ABA Indie Next Selection
An ABA Indie Next Gift Guide Selection
An ABA Summer 2023 Indie Next List for Reading Groups
A PLA LibraryReads Selection
A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of
Summer
“A perfect blend of thriller, horror, and coming-of-age story.”
—The Boston Globe
“Haunting.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“This story is way more than a thriller, more than a ghost story.
It is one of family and history, of culture, of past and present,
of walking set boundaries and of discovering oneself.”
—USA Today
“This paranormal police procedural is unusual and multilayered, but
what stands out is the gorgeously expressive and propulsive
first-person storytelling, which is split between Rita’s present
and her past. A former forensic photographer herself, the pictures
Emerson paints with words are as vivid as they are brutal.”
—Oprah Daily
“Shutter is utterly unputdownable. It is a haunting thriller,
written with exquisite suspense, and filled to the brim with
beautiful writing, through the lens of cameras and memory—an ode to
photography, written across the landscapes of the Navajo
Nation and cityscapes of New Mexico, about what it means to
witness and capture death, be captured by it, told unflinchingly by
an author who knows what she is doing on every page. It is fun, and
funny, and chilling. This is a story that won’t let you go long
after you finish, and you won’t want it to end even as you can’t
stop reading to find out how it does.”
—Tommy Orange, author of There There
“A unique perspective on New Mexico and native culture.”
—New Mexico PBS
“[Emerson] brings a contemporary Diné protagonist to brilliant
life. Rita vibrates off the page with grit, vulnerability, and a
set of keen observational powers that allow her to rise above
violence, corruption, and family trauma. Here’s hoping her
crime-solving career is a long one.”
—New Mexico Magazine
“Shutter defies easy genre classification . . . Yes, this is a
mystery with elements of horror, but the novel also plumbs Rita’s
relationship with her grandmother, who raised her on the Navajo
reservation hours from the city where she now works. The result,
featuring one of the best first chapters I’ve ever read
(admittedly, not for the faint of heart), leaves us with so much
more than phantasmagoric thrills.”
—Book & Film Globe
“This mystery-crime-thriller is beautifully and chillingly
rendered.”
—Ms. Magazine
“Rita is a starkly compelling figure, and she, combined with the
cacophonous voices of the dead, makes this debut novel a strange
and potent brew.”
—AirMail
“Superbly crafted.”
—The Colorado Sun
“Emerson touches upon subjects that Diné often are reluctant to
raise or discuss in intimate circles, and does so in ways that
allows for conversation about death, the possibilities of a spirit
world, gifts of second sight, and witchery and evil . . . Yet, we
must acknowledge and work through because it is reality, it is more
so a coming-of-age story.”
—Jennifer Dez Dennetdale, Navajo Times
“Emerson immediately establishes herself as a new talent with her
engrossing debut Shutter, which combines a story of Navajo culture,
coming of age, mysticism, family ties and crime detection . .
. Emerson is definitely an author to watch.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“The thriller read of the summer—Dark Winds meets The Sixth
Sense.”
—Indian Country Today
“Gritty.”
—Outside Magazine
“Emerson creates a powerful tension between Rita’s photographic
documentation of dead bodies at crime scenes and the spiritual
desperation of their souls . . . The title of the novel
captures photography’s fluidity, at once referring to the blink of
a cold, mechanical eye and suggesting the near
homonym, shudder, the visceral chill when in the presence
of the supernatural.”
—Ploughshares
“[Emerson] navigates family and crime to create a captivating
mystery and page-turner.”
—Deschutes Bulletin
“Get ready for the next wave of Indigenous thrillers! Shutter is a
soulful and mesmerizing exploration of the paranormal, set against
the backdrop of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. Written in tough,
edgy prose, this book grabs you by the shoulders and refuses to let
you leave. Ramona Emerson is a welcome new voice in Native
literature.”
—David Heska Wanbli Weiden, author of Winter Counts
“Beautiful, imaginative prose with a sharp edge. Shutter is a
powerful and supernatural debut. I've never seen a better rendering
of gifts and power. This work understands the spirit world and how
it does not relent until we bear witness. Ramona Emerson is a
badass, propulsive, exacting and true storyteller.”
—Terese Mailhot, author of Heart Berries
“This debut, spellbinding, gritty and beautiful, laced with body
parts, hauntings, humor, residential school trauma and a lot of
bloody noses, is, in the end, the story of a young girl who fell in
love with a camera, and followed that camera into a life. Layered,
depth-plumbing, radically suspenseful, deeply felt, Shutter moves
between making your blood run cold and warming your heart, so
quickly, smoothly and stealthily you won’t know what hit you.”
—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High
Country
“In her thrilling debut, Shutter, Ramona Emerson allows us a
glance into not just one world, but many. Bridging the divide
between a grounded procedural mystery and a paranormal thriller,
this novel is a feast for fans of both genres and brings us a
protagonist we’ll want to visit again and again.”
—Stuart Neville, author of The Ghosts of Belfast
“The mysterious, the paranormal, and the historical come together
in Romona Emerson's riveting debut . . . Emerson's powerful
new voice brings a breath of fresh air to the crime fiction
genre.”
—Cowboys & Indians
“Chilling.”
—Arizona Daily Star
“A truly stunning ghost story-cum-crime thriller.”
—The Muskogee Phoenix
“Hard to put down.”
—The Joplin Globe
“Shutter is an extraordinary debut novel, a stunning mix of crime,
character study, and the supernatural, told in propulsive prose
against the landscape of the Navajo Nation. It’ll leave you
gasping—and desperate to read what the author does next.”
—Neil Nyren, BookTrib
“Loved this book! . . . [Shutter] has a mixed tone of being a
dark-ish procedural and also a beautiful book about with her
relationship with her grandmother. I would absolutely read another
book following Rita and also anything else Ramona Emerson
writes.”
—BookRiot
“Shutter is impossible to classify, gorgeously written and
ingeniously constructed. An indigenous crime scene photographer who
hears the voices of the dead finds her careful existence shattered
by the pleas of a murdered young woman to find her killer.”
—CrimeReads
“Ramona Emerson's awesome debut, Shutter, had me totally mesmerized
from cover to cover. Not since Stuart Neville's supernatural
thriller, The Ghosts of Belfast, have I seen a more perfect blend
of ghostly horror and mystery.”
—SFReview
“Emerson weaves a page-turning plot with powerful family stories
from Rita’s past on the reservation, building up layers of
back-story that inform an increasingly complicated crime story in
the present.”
—The Agony Report
“Taut as a bowstring.”
—Kittling Books
“This debut trilogy-starter showcases top-notch storytelling.”
—Booklist
“Emerson presents an indigenous coming-of-age story blending
forensics and the supernatural with a haunted heroine facing
relentless evil.”
—This is Horror
“Emerson, a filmmaker, is a stylish writer who has deftly combined
plot, character, and setting into a compelling montage.”
—Reviewing the Evidence
“Satisfyingly explores forensic photography and Diné culture within
the New Mexico landscape, surrounded by the voices of some very
engaging ghosts.”
—BookPage
“Crime fiction fans will relish this keenly balanced paranormal
page-turner and piquant coming-of-age yarn.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Emerson’s striking debut follows a Navajo police photographer
almost literally to hell and back . . . A whodunit upstaged at
every point by the unforgettably febrile intensity of the heroine’s
first-person narrative.”
—Kirkus Reviews
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