John's Reviews > Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

I'm a fan of Eric Weiner, recently tackling his latest work The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley. That book and this one struck me the same way: great content and narration, but likely more suited for print reading.

Here, the chapters utilize specific examples of hauntings to make larger points. The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, though more eerie than specifically haunted, starts off the book's overall examination of American history and culture with a look at motivation behind the 1692 accusations, including the land on which the house stands. The author moves on to the Winchester Mystery House in California, which is more in the nature of a debunking of its myths. I don't have a print copy for reference and it took me nearly the whole three=week loan period to finish, so my recollection of all that's covered isn't perfect. However, there's a chapter on places where ghosts were contacted by Spiritualists, leading to a focus on Victorian gender issues. Later, the author asks "If the non-white experience had much tragedy, why are so many ghosts white?" to launch into a discussion of slavery (later re-visited in a chapter on New Orleans). I wasn't all that interested in the section covering prisons, so tuned out much of that one I admit. The chapter on haunted buildings gave a shout out to the local mental hospital where I was raised: Greystone Park - yay for the home team! (I had been sent there to attend commitment hearings for a while when I worked in the local court system.)

I guess if I had to really boil down a synopsis: "What do the living 'get' out of hauntings?" Dickey structures the book well, with each chapter a good story on its own, but as a whole it was work for me to get through it. I'm left feeling that was from listening to that much essay-style nonfiction at a go, as opposed to the print edition? Again, the narration was very good, quite well-suited to the work, so in that regard, Your Mileage May Vary (as they say).