More Than One Ghost in This Post

Posted by

124

A petrifying poltergeist protagonist. (Getty Images.)

Halloween is still six weeks away, but I wanted to discuss novels and short stories that include ghosts (after having written somewhat-similar posts in 2016 and 2021).

Why? I recently finished Elin Hilderbrand’s The Hotel Nantucket, and while that compulsively readable 2022 novel includes many compelling characters and plot lines, the highlight might be the presence of a 1922-murdered ghost still floating around the book’s Massachusetts hotel in the 2020s. That specter is 19-year-old Grace Hadley, who is bitter, funny, mischievous, and good-hearted. She keeps up on 21st-century trends, too.

A brief interlude: Three more wonderful reviews of my Misty the Cat…Unleashed book have appeared! 🙂 Author/blogger Carolyn Haynes wrote one of them on September 8, “Purrs of Wisdom” blogger Ingrid King wrote another last month that I saw belatedly, and Geri Rombach wrote still another review for the current issue of Pet Scene magazine. Links near the end of this post. Thank you very much, Carolyn, Ingrid, and Geri! 🙂

Late last year, I read George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo — populated almost exclusively by ghosts stuck in purgatory, including President Lincoln’s recently deceased son Willie. An odd novel that’s not exactly a page-turner, but haunting.

Also a ghost of sorts hovering between life and death is Nora Seed of Matt Haig’s intriguing The Midnight Library, which I read in 2022. While in the cosmic library of the novel’s title, Nora experiences various personal timelines that might have been.

I read Toni Morrison’s famed modern classic Beloved a number of years ago, but somehow neglected to include it in my aforementioned 2016 and 2021 posts. The formerly enslaved Sethe believes there is a spirit named Beloved who is the deceased daughter she killed to prevent her from becoming a slave.

Novels and stories with ghosts mentioned in my 2016 and 2021 posts include — among others — Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (whose supernatural characters include the hilarious Peeves the Poltergeist), Edith Wharton’s many excellent ghost stories, Oscar Wilde’s humorous tale “The Canterville Ghost,” Graham Greene’s short shocker “Proof Positive,” and Dickens’ story “The Signal-Man.”

Ghosts in literature definitely give authors a chance to use their imagination, scare their readers, create dark humor, and more.

Any fiction with ghosts you’d like to discuss? And I should mention that ghosts rhyme with (blog) posts. 🙂

Carolyn Haynes’ review of Misty the Cat…Unleashed: 🙂

MOVED TO FRISSON!

Ingrid King’s review: 🙂

Review: Misty the Cat…Unleashed

Geri Rombach’s review: 🙂 It appears on page 35.

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — which includes a weird take on a valuable baseball card, a welcome change in gas station ownership, a too-big townhouse proposal, and more — is here.

124 thoughts on “More Than One Ghost in This Post”

  1. I love Beloved and really caught by the haunting here and the kind of real story with psychological depth and terrible social history. Other ghost stories just to scare do not interest me. I am still truly disturbed by Susan Hill’s Woman in Black. The stage show too even when I knew the ending.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, navasolanature! Great observation that some ghost fiction is just to scare (and/or perhaps to entertain) while some ghost fiction has a lot of depth (in addition to perhaps scaring/entertaining). The modern classic “Beloved” has all kinds of elements.

      You’re the second person to mention “The Woman in Black.” Definitely on my to-read list!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  2. Hi Dave,

    My first thought was that most of my favourite books have ghosts in them, but then I realised that’s not really true and all I could think of were the obvious ones that have already been mentioned. And then I thought about the book I’m currently re-reading which is “The Witching Hour” by Anne Rice who loves to have dead and undead characters in her novels. “The Witching Hour” is kind of about a family of witches, but it’s more about the spirit that has attached himself to these women. He’s not really a ghost, but the Mayfair family have their own powers which means they often see ghosts, and I think the people who have passed on before them probably don’t really want to go. It makes for a very rich and historical read, even though at 1207 pages, it’s also a tad on the long side.

    I’ll try and think of a more interesting example by the end of the week.

    Sue

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Sue! “The Witching Hour,” which I read in the mid-2010s, is indeed quite compelling and VERY long. You described it well! Probably could have worked with a couple hundred fewer pages, but I was rarely bored. 🙂 The only Anne Rice novel I’ve read, so I’m vampire-deprived. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. A particular ghost appears throughout Wilkie Collins early novel, The Dead Secret. Particular, because to only one pair of frightened eyes does she manifest– but over the possessor of those eyes the ghost is more real than the people around her.

    There are elements, structural and thematic, in this early work that will reappear in The Woman In White and The Moonstone, though both books are better realized, as whole works, than The Dead Secret. After The Woman In White and The Moonstone, any reader converted to Collins would be interested to look into this novel, and rewarded.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, jhNY! I’ve read five Wilkie Collins novels — the excellent “The Woman in White,” “The Moonstone,” “No Name,” and “Armadale,” and the so-so “A Rogue’s Life” — but had not heard of “The Dead Secret.” Sounds interesting, despite not being “peak” Wilkie Collins.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  4. Lots of great ghost novels and short stories. How about Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories or The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs or The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

    But never mind that – it’s all about Misty and these wonderful reviews! (oh and yes, Dave too)😉😊

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. Congrats on the reviews, Dave!

    I went over and read Ingrid’s review. It was very good. There were no likes, so I sent out a Tweet! …or an X… I guess….

    First book that came to mind was Roberta Cheadle’s , A Ghost and his Gold.

    It is an excellent read, and the ghosts …teach.

    Actually many ghosts in stories teach us something. A Christmas Carol is a good example of that.

    Stephen King’s The Shining, which is also a fab movie, came to mind.

    Currently, I am reading a book titled “Once a Soldier, Now a Ghost, by Michael Steeden.

    I’m just past half way. The beginning is quite haunting, describing the dying of a soldier (hence soldiers) of WWII in the eastern front, through the lens of a nurse.

    Again, congrats on the reviews!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you very much, Resa, for the review congratulations, the kind “X-ing,” and the book examples! Greatly appreciated. 🙂 Robbie Cheadle’s “A Ghost and His Gold” — definitely! Glad you mentioned it. Yes, some ghosts are educators of a sort. Reminds me of the academia phrase “publish or perish,” though a ghost professor would “perish and publish.”

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    • Hi Resa, thank you for your mention of A Ghost and His Gold. I am delighted you enjoyed it so much. The Shining is my favourite King book. It is just so completely creepy. I always remember the scene in the ballroom with the clock and the little people that danced when the clock struck. It was beyond creepy. An the woman in the bath – eeek! “Once a Soldier, Now a Ghost, by Michael Steeden sounds good. I’ll look for it. I started listening to The Unbearable Lightness of Being yesterday. So far it is quite fascinating. I got the idea to listen to it because of my poem which I titled The Unbearable Endurance of Being. I thought since I’d pinched a book title, I should at least read the book.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  7. We’re on similar wavelengths with reading! I just read Hotel Nantucket not all that long ago – just a few weeks ago, in fact! I absolutely loved it! And I agree, the ghost was one of my favorite parts about it. What a unique twist on a summer read. I also really liked Lincoln in the Bardo, which I read a few years back. Definitely different than most books I read, but very interesting!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, M.B.! Well, you recommended Elin Hilderbrand, and I’m hooked after two books (“The Hotel Nantucket” after having read “Summer of ’69”). The ghost is definitely a literary treat! And, yes, “Lincoln in the Bardo” IS quite different. Can’t say I loved it, but I’m glad I read it.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

        • I agree that “Summer of ’69” is terrific! Being old enough to have been a teen during that year, I think Elin Hilderbrand really captured that time.

          My next Hilderbrand read (took it out of the library a couple weeks ago) will be “The Matchmaker” — chosen at random. 🙂

          Liked by 2 people

          Reply

    • Thank you, Madeline! “Sassy” is the perfect word to describe Grace’s behavior! She is definitely one of my favorite ghosts in novels. And I appreciate the mention of “The Turner House,” which I looked up on Wikipedia when seeing your comment and added to my to-read list. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. I like your round-up of books that include ghosts. “Lincoln in the Bardo” did such an interesting job of presenting ghosts in a way that I hadn’t seen before. As for other books that include ghosts, I’ve been reading the “Harbor Pointe” series by our fellow WordPress bloggers. The first three books in the series have ghosts in them — I don’t know if the rest of the books have ghosts, too.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Dave! Yes, “Lincoln in the Bardo” is quite original. Like you, I feel I’ve never read anything quite like it, though it was hardly a page-turner. And glad you mentioned the “Harbor Pointe” series by very talented WP bloggers!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • “Lincoln in the Bardo” is indeed very weird and hard to follow, Robbie. If anyone gave it a pass, I wouldn’t blame them. 🙂 Though I was ultimately (sort of) glad I read it. It’s certainly one of the more original novels I’ve experienced.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  13. A spine-tingling post, Dave!!! I LOVED it.

    Ghost stories have been with us for centuries, tapping into our innate curiosity about the unknown and the afterlife. They evoke a sense of thrill and suspense, allowing us to confront our fears in a safe environment. They hold a profound message that speaks to our sense of destiny – our destiny. These tales bring us themes of loss, love, and the unresolved, which resonate with our own experiences and emotions. I remember sitting around a campfire where ghost stories were told – some over and over again. Every family has a ghost, don’t they? For mine family, it was a woman, in pilgrim dress, that came for a great-great uncle who died during the 1918 flu epidemic.

    My favourite ghost story is “The Ghost and Mrs Muir” by R.A. Dick. It is a charming novel that tells the story of a young widow, Lucy Muir, who moves into a seaside cottage haunted by the ghost of its former owner, Captain Daniel Gregg. Initially, Lucy is frightened by the ghost, but she soon discovers that he is a kindred spirit who offers her companionship and guidance. The narrative beautifully captures the essence of life and the afterlife, making it a timeless classic.

    The book was made into the 1947 movie starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney.

    And of course, I had to leave a quote:

    “Real love isn’t blind, it sees everything and has an endless capacity for forgiving.” R.A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Rebecca! An excellent comment, and I liked your use of the word(s) “spine-tingling.”

      Yes, ghost stories can be all of the things you mentioned in your second paragraph. I was particularly struck by your insightful point that ghost stories can scare us, yet we are of course safe because those tales are fiction. Well, maybe not always fiction. 🙂

      “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”! I should read that! I remember, as a kid, watching the TV version starring Hope Lange.

      That’s a profound quote ending your comment!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    • Sorry, I didn’t get to reply to you in Dave’s last theme. The whole week just slipped by me. I like your mentioning campfire ghost tales. I once wrote a short story about a group of cavemen sitting around the campfire listening to the old tale “Where is my golden arm?” Only in my story, one caveman is totally confused about the tale itself and ask the storyteller, “Hey, What the heck is gold?” Though never questioning what the heck an artificial limb was or how the victim came back from the dead to search for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Arm

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

    • Rebecca, you aye have wonderful comments, often with afabulous quote too. The Ghost and Mrs Muir is great film. Oh and yes you know I never like telling people incase they think I am barking but we lived with a ghost in our house for years. One that more than vistor ran out the house screaming from too. The ghost of a ww1 soldier apparently. So yeah. There’s also Cathy’s ghost in Wuthering Heights ..fab way to draw a reader in. And another book I will mention is the Lovely Bones.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      • Yes, Shehanne and Robbie, Rebecca’s comments are great! Masterful mini-essays.

        Shehanne, I’m impressed that you lived with a ghost for years! I’m skeptical that ghosts exist, but if you’ve had firsthand experience with one, I probably need to do some rethinking.

        Yes, Cathy’s ghost in “Wuthering Heights” helps that novel get off to an amazing start. And an excellent “The Lovely Bones” mention.

        Robbie, I agree that there are many wonderful book and author recommendations in the comments section (that end up comprising a large part of my reading list 🙂 ). Hoping “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” is at my local library.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        • Thank you Dave. I didn’t believe in ghosts either until a few days after we moved in. And then I said nothing for a long time thinking I was the one imagining things. But then the girls came to me with the same imagined things. We were doing quite a lot of renovations at the time. So when the person who we’d bought the hosue from some years before all this asked how one of my girl’s was liking her new attic bedroom, I said jokingly she wouldn’t sleep in it cos someone walked up and down all night Well… then the story came out of how .this ‘seller’ never said but yeah someone did, a www1 soldier. We did have people who ran out screaming cos things got thrown sometimes. I had a red haired pupil who table lamps were thrown at..I am not making this up. And eventually despite still being vey sceptical., cos it sometimes is hard to believe the evidnece of your own eyes, after a roofer came in and came told me we weren’t alone ,and this was nothing to do with wanting business for his wife who was basically a Romany..cos she didn’t take money for this kind of thing. She came over to get this spirit to go.. Again, and I am not making this up, what we sat through was like something out of a horror movie. She also said WW1 soldier and another woman I taught, who was a pyschic columnsit for anational newpaper, she also said WWW1 soldier. None of these people knew eachother. And I certainly had never said soldier. to anyone. Also my Mr, who never believes anything like that… well he was so unconviced about the night our younger fell over the top landing bannister down to the bottom storey, being an accidnet. (She said something pushed her as she leaned a wee bit over,) he asked a priest to come in and bless the place. There you go. Now I must sound like an abso belter but all of this happened.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  14. The first book that comes to mind when I consider ghosts is TRYST, a romance novel published in 1939 by Elswyth Thane. In TRYST, a young British officer is killed and finds himself a ghost back in his childhood home, which has been rented out to a family with a painfully shy, lonely, and motherless seventeen-year-old daughter. Somehow, although she can’t see the man/ghost, she senses that he’s in the house and comes to love him. When I read this book at twelve, I considered it wonderfully romantic, and although I haven’t read it in years, I bet I still would! Not a horror story at all, nor a comedy, just a slightly melancholy love story.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  15. Food for thought as usual, Dave. First up is Lockwood in ‘Wuthering Heights’, and his dream (or was it) of the ghost child who claims to be Catherine Linton and says that she’s been trying to get in for twenty years. Heathcliff certainly think’s it’s Cathy come back, going almost insane at the window, begging her to come inside–and at the end of the novel, there are stories in the area that Heathcliff’s own ghost has been seen up on the moors, with the ghost of a woman. Going back in time, there’s the ghost of Banquo who comes to dinner with Macbeth, with blood upon his face. And of course there’s Hamlet’s father, come back to request his son to avenge him. This ghost is an interesting case, having his roots as he does in ‘The Golden Ass’, by Apuleius. There’s a story here of Charite, in which her favoured suitor Tlepolemus is slain by another jealous suitor, Thrasyllus, his body secretly buried. His ghost visits Charite and tells her what has happened; she tricks Thrasyllus, blinds him for revenge, then kills herself to be with her lover (a bit of Romeo and Juliet in there as a bonus). The same theme comes down to one of the tales of Boccaccio in his ‘Decameron’. Isabella loves Lorenzo, an employee of her brothers. Enraged that a mere hireling would aspire to the hand of their sister, they kill him and bury his body. His ghost comes to Isabella, who goes to the location of his burial and cuts off his head, which she takes back to her room and secretes in a pot, planting fragrant basil in it to cover the odour of mortality. She waters it daily with her tears until she dies of grief. Happy days! lol. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Laura! “Wuthering Heights” is a terrific mention; I should have remembered that. 🙂 And Shakespeare was an excellent ghost writer (hmm, that could be misinterpreted; he most likely wrote his own stuff 🙂 ). Last but not least, that “Decameron” reference — wow! You described it quite vividly!

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      • Indeed, although there’s quite a bit of speculation about Shakespeare’s ID, including the idea that he was a ‘front’ for Queen Elizabeth – making her his ghost writer? So you could be correct, if unintentionally. 🙂 As to the Apuleius and Decameron, one of the most memorable modules of my degree was in the history of the oral tradition of storytelling, including how the same themes and tropes have been used over and again down the centuries. This one with the ‘vengeful ghost’ crops up all over the place – remember ‘Ghost’, with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg? It’s a brilliant subject. Thanks for giving me the ghost of a chance to rant about it. 🙂

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  16. Dave, congrats on the wonderful reviews! I enjoy reading ghost stories, except those of the bloody, horror genre. The last ghost novel I enjoyed reading earlier this year was “The Lost Village” by Swedish author Camilla Sten, translated by Alexandra Fleming. The protagonist returns to the village where her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in 1959 together with all the residents of an old Swedish mining town.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Rosaliene! I was thrilled to see those reviews. 🙂 Yes, ghost stories with some subtlety can be very welcome; Edith Wharton was certainly an expert with that minimalist approach in her ghost stories. And “The Lost Village” sounds VERY interesting and eerie.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  17. Ghosts are a perfect literary device, whether presented as real or as products of a character’s disturbed mind. I’ve read some of the books you mention. King’s The Shining is one of the “real ghosts” type, and terrifying. The Little Stranger, mentioned by Darlene, is of the other type–ambiguous and creepy.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Audrey! Excellent point about how ghosts in literature can either be “real” or imagined (by a disturbed character). Sometimes, of course, the reader is left to guess which is which; that ambiguity can make for a compelling story line. And “The Shining” is a great mention!

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  18. Hmm ghosts…this is the thing I don’t get: If you still hang out where you died, I can’t say you’re getting much out of the afterlife since it would be a perfect time to travel to parts unknown and some known that you never had the opportunity to visit while alive. Condequently, there seems to be a major difference between being a ghost and being a ghost who haunts the living. I always liked Thorne Smith’s Topper since George and Marian lived very carefree lives, dead and undead, both the book and the TV series. And Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, which is comedic ghostwise as well. Great reviews for Misty. In fact, the cat ghost story in which a cat has 7 versions of itself in the afterlife, ie the end of the song “the cat came back”. Ha! Nice theme Dave. Susi

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  20. As far as I know, many people claim to have witnessed paranormal phenomena and to have seen the appearance of these beings from beyond the grave, but, for now, there is no scientific evidence of the existence of spirits. Have a good week for you Dave.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  21. I don’t know why people are so terribly afraid of ghosts. After all they’re just specters, echoes of what used to be a human. Although I might have once had an encounter with one in an old colonial mansion in Guatemala (my wife witnessed it too), I’m still a little skeptical because we were both a little bit tipsy (not drunk, just a bit elated) and never saw one again since then. The landlady however confirmed its existence and said that it scared away some of her guests. It was supposedly the specter of an ancestor who was buried in the back yard. In contrary to most owners of a haunted mansion in the UK who see it as a publicity argument, she did rather preferred to keep it under wraps.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Shaharee! Really enjoyed your vivid description of your specter experience in Guatemala, and it was interesting to hear that the ghost’s existence (post-existence?) was corroborated. I’ve never experienced a ghostly presence — not even during my two visits to Guatemala 🙂 — so I don’t know if I would be scared or not.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  22. The first 2 ghosts that came to mind are both from Shakespeare, Hamlet’s father and Banquo from Macbeth.

    As I was thinking this through, I remembered that Rebecca is one of your favorites and I was wondering if you thought the specter of Rebecca counted as a ghost 🙃

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, Endless Weekend! Shakespeare certainly offered readers some VERY memorable ghosts.

      Great question in your second paragraph! I’d say Rebecca is not a ghost per se, but IS a haunting “presence.” What do you think?

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

Leave a reply to navasolanature Cancel reply