Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country

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In writing this book Edward Parnell has drawn his lost family together by telling ghost stories, embedding his mother, father and older brother on the pages with anecdotes, memories and photographs. The language of ghosts, it seems, has become an important (if abstract) way of how we talk about architecture and place. Dickey has a wry affection for ghost hunters, but a pseudoscientific investigation of ghostly phenomena isn't what he's after. What he uncovers is so much more: our attitudes towards death, of course, but also gender norms, race, mental illness, and, surprisingly, architecture. It is easy to feel as though you’re stepping back in time as you walk in the steps of those long gone.

The house remained vacant until the philosopher Athenodorus rented it; his first night he waited up for the ghost, writing in his study, until the apparition appeared.

Gertrude has also been seen inside the house, sometimes humming, sometimes playing the piano—always appearing as a frail, petite woman in period costume. It's not written for cheap scares but rather to explore the idea of hauntings, why they become culturally significant and why memories and trauma are repeated over and over in the form of supernatural events.

The section on The Wicker Man left me wondering if he'd actually visited Galloway because it's treated so superficially. Parnell discusses Machen’s most famous and influential work, THE GREAT GOD PAN (1894), “his semi-autobiographical THE HILL OF DREAMS” (1907), “his most memorable of …dark tales, “The Novel of the Black Seal” (1895), and the “mesmerizing” “The White People” (1904), among others. A skillful and intriguing weaving together, less of haunted houses as of haunted people, including MR James, Alan Garner, W G Sebald and the author himself, in places where the past has left its mark. That we continue believing in ghosts despite our rational mind’s skepticism suggests that in these stories lies something crucial to the way we understand the world around us. Many families can’t risk traveling or even getting together because of the surging pandemic; others are mourning loved ones who fell victim to this cruel and relentless disease.From the era of slavery to 19th century spiritualism to women's suffrage up to today, ghost stories have played an integral part of our nation's history. In one long section he explores the settings for “The Wicker Man,” that cinematic high point of British folk horror.

From the beginning, Parnell hints — sometimes ponderously — that bad things are eventually going to happen to his mother, father and brother.It's a tour of America's haunted places that takes an insightful look at how ghost stories are made, how ghosts and historical visibility are so tightly intertwined, and why we keep looking for the dead.

In a world where nearly every moment of our lives is photographed, recorded, and documented, the gaps in the past still beckon us. A lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories… absorbing…[and] intellectually intriguing. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. In Dorothy Gallagher’s “ Stories I Forgot to Tell You,” the “You” in her title is Ben Sonnenberg, the founding editor of Grand Street magazine and author of the brilliant Casanovan memoir “ Lost Property” (recently reissued as a New York Review Books paperback).

It truly is a book that lives up to the promise of the front cover (a visual feast of folk horror references! Dickey's analysis of the Winchester ghost story does tackle some of these falsehoods head on, but it's in service to answer a broader question: what is it about this strange mansion that drives us to believe it must be haunted? Eventually the philosopher allowed the ghost to lead him outside of the house into the yard, where he vanished.