Ghost Story
(Contains spoilers)
Initially I thought that because I have read so many thrillers recently, I would like to read something more light this time. Well, as you can see on the title, that didn’t happen. I’ve had this book in my bookcase for years, and never read it. This copy was made about the same time as the original edition. It has this strong old book smell, some of the paces are loose or completely detached from the binding, it has very old looking font, and it has some markings that the previous owner made. I got (or took) this book from my mom, but I have no idea where she got it. Maybe at a flea market somewhere. The exterior of the book matches ridiculously well to the content inside, and it brought something to the whole reading experience.
Ghost story is Peter Straub’s maybe most known horror novel, which was (recording to Google search) first released in 1971. Coward, McCann and Geoghegan however published it in 1979, so I’m not sure which one is the correct publishing date (Wikipedia, 2020). There’s also 1981 released movie of the same name, which I haven’t seen but might watch later. Ghost story is, as I found out from other reviews, quite popular and highly liked book. Even Stephen King praised this book as “one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century”. Since then, King and Straub have done several collaboration stories. Maybe I should give them (or at least one) a try in the future.
Ghost story and it’s events are based on fictional city of Milburn in New York. In the center of the story is The Chowder Society, which includes Ricky Hawthorne, Sears James, John Jaffrey, Edward Wanderley and Lewis Benedikt. These five, now elderly men have been friends since they were young, and after one of them dies in suspicious circumstances, they start to gather around more often to tell each other literal ghost stories. Initially the conversation topic was “What is the worst thing that you have ever done?”, but because they all bear the same guilt about Eva Galli’s death, they switched it to “What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you?”. Through those stories and also Don’s notes, we get to know about Gregory, Fenny and A. M.’s (Angie Maule, Alma Mobley, Anna Mosty, Ann-Veronica Moore). The Crowder Society begin to experience supernatural incidents, and they think that they’re being hunted by Eva Galli. I sympathized most with Peter’s character, because he truly just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and of all of them, he did go through the most.
I haven’t read many horror books, so it was new to me that a book would create the same emotional reaction than a movie does. Or maybe it was just this book and it’s subject that I found to be really frighting. It doesn’t matter if it’s mental illness, spirit or demon of some sort, but if a person is acting unnatural or if they possess any inhuman powers, I’m going to feel unease. Not to say that a person with depression is scary to me, but more like a sociopathic or a psychopathic traits. That’s also why I found this book to be so terrifying. I usually read it in bed before I went to sleep, and after reading, my imagination really started to activate itself. I thought about dark corners in my apartment, and how there could be someone staring at me, or when I brushed my teeth, how I could see my reflection in the mirror do different expressions or movements than I actually do. Naturally, I pretended to not even care about these thoughts (I think we all do this), and watched some nice, wholesome cooking videos on YouTube to change the mood. So, my recommendation: Do not read this book at night time.
Ghost story, for me, started as a separate pieces of story telling which confused me a lot. I thought, that the book was collection of short stories, because the totally unknown characters at the beginning of the book didn’t get any explanation until the third of the book was finished. Also, the chapter numbers don’t quite work the same that they do in other books. If you just read chapter 2, the next one could be chapter 1 again because the narrator changes, which made me frequently check if I missed some chapters or paces. Ghost story introduces a lot of characters, which made the reading experience even more difficult for me. However, the story clearly follows The Chowder Society, and later on Don Wanderley, Edward’s nephew, and Peter Barnes establish their roles as one of the main characters as well. Most of the initial confusion left maybe around the third of the book, and I was so pleased that all the “separate” story lines joined together nicely. I was definitely not left disappointed by the ending, and Ghost Story is so far my favorite horror piece out there.
4/5
References:
Wikipedia (2020). Ghost Story (Straub novel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Story_(Straub_novel)
