Ghost novels Archives - Page 6 of 6

Book Review: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

July 10, 2011 Deb Comments 2 comments

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski Publisher: Harper Collins, 562 pages Format: Hardcover Source: Purchased What it’s about: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle begins, unexpectedly, in 1952 Busan with a secret night meeting between a US serviceman and a Korean herbalist. The service man offers penicillin in exchange for poison. The herbalist says, “I think here we trade one life for one life” (5). The prologue ends without naming the serviceman, and chapter one begins with…

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Ghost Novel Review: The Turn of the Screw

June 26, 2011 Deb Comments 6 comments

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Publisher: Dover Thrift, 87 pages Format: Paperback Source: Purchased What it’s about: Perhaps you know the gist of the story: naïve, love-starved governess seeks countryside post teaching suspiciously angelic children who are wards of a handsome, mysterious, unavailable (emotionally as well as geographically) landowner. The novella opens in a fireside gathering of friends eager to share ghost stories. The women are particularly thirsting for bloody and gory narratives. The host explains the…

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Ghost Novel Review: Heart-Shaped Box

May 30, 2011 Deb Comments 1 comment

The Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Publisher: Harper Collins, 366 pages Format: Paperback Source: Purchased What it’s about: Ex-rock star Judas Coyne (born Justin Cowzinski) has seen it all and done everything good and bad, or believes he has. Now he collects grisly artifacts or memento mori just to make himself feel alive.When he hears about a ghost for sale on an auction site, he cannot resist purchasing it. Once the black heart-shaped box arrives, Judas opens it to discover…

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Ghost novel review: Her Fearful Symmetry

April 21, 2011 Deb Comments 2 comments

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger Review Part Two Endings are so hard, aren’t they? At Laurie’s monthly book group, concerns about conclusions run high. When I listen to people describe a book, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the ending always figures into the discussion, which generally falls into three categories. The first category involves quilting metaphors. I hear, “the threads were tied up too neatly” or “not tied up neatly enough” or “story threads were left hanging.” In the second…

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Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry

April 14, 2011 Deb Comments 0 Comment

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger Scribner, 406 pages. A set of twenty-year-old twins, children of a twin, receives a mysterious inheritance—a London flat adjacent to Highgate Cemetery in which the twin girls must live together for one year before assuming ownership. Soon after arrival, Julia and Valentina mix with their quirky, lovable neighbors—Martin, housebound neurotic and puzzle mastermind; Robert, cemetery scholar and leal lover of the deceased. Not to be outdone, the cemetery itself dons a quasi-character role. Into…

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Ghost Novel Review: Saving Fish from Drowning

April 4, 2011 Deb Comments 0 Comment

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan I so wanted to love this book. I loved the idea—a novice ghost follows her museum friends on an ill-fated tour through Myanmar. I loved Tan’s trademark fusing of myth to narrative, particularly the satiric vignette detailing how one goes about saving a fish from drowning. I loved the comforting heft of the book as I settled beneath my Tree of Life quilt and snapped on the bedside lamp. What I didn’t love…

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Ghost Novel Review: Beloved

March 21, 2011 Deb Comments 2 comments

Beloved by Toni Morrison Publisher: Plume, 275 pages Format: Paperback Source: Purchased What it’s about: Set in the south in the years before and after the Civil War, Beloved tracks the ravages of oppression across one matriarchal line—that of Baby Suggs, Sethe, Denver, and their sons and lovers. The novel depicts in unflinching narrative the horrors that slavery wreaks on individuals and families. There are chain gangs, routinized torture, and callous indifference. We know, for instance, that Sethe’s baby daughter,…

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Ghost Novel Review: The Little Stranger

March 10, 2011 Deb Comments 0 Comment

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters In many ways this book reminded me of Jane Eyre—the retrospective narrator, the gloomy atmosphere, the decaying mansion. Minus, of course, lapses into Dear reader confidences. Just as Bronte did before her, Waters renders the crumbling mansion’s inhabitants with subtle shifts—Mrs. Ayres, increasingly desperate to maintain the veneer of the landed gentry; Roderick Ayres, desperate to preserve himself inviolate; Catherine Ayres, desperate to keep it together despite a malevolent supernatural presence. And then…

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