Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
Ratings20
Average rating4.1
An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places — and deep into the dark side of our history.
Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget.
With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living — how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made — and why those changes are made — Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved.
Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.
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This is truly a fascinating review of a collection of hauntings within the United States. It goes deeper than, “this is the story” as it delves into the backgrounds, lives, and what shaped the people that these legends and stories are about. Historical documentation, such as did these people actually exist, how “reliable” sources are, etc are given credibility within this book.
I loved it. I was hoping for some spooky stories, but got a collection of well thought out, well written historical episodes, that leave you wanting to visit many of the places that are mentioned here. From coast to coast, this book is jam packed with all sorts of legends, hauntings, urban legends and more! I highly recommend this one!
I was quite excited to spend my monthly Audible credit on this book; what a fascinating idea! I, unfortunately, have returned it to Audible. Each house is well-chosen: the Lemp mansion, for example, as a haunted touchstone in American history and culture...and then debunked as an actual, or at least a full as-known haunting by the author. Chapter after chapter. I hung on until the author stated repeatedly that Spiritualism didn't last, it was dead, it was no longer a thriving practice in the United States. Then I stopped reading. Why? I had reached poor scholarship and research. There is an entire town of Spiritualists who live and work as such, in plain sight, and have done so for years: Lily Dale. Both a documentary and a book are available about Lily Dale, New York, and both are easy to find:[bc:Lily Dale : The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead 227324 Lily Dale The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead Christine Wicker https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1441110606s/227324.jpg 220195]Lily Dale: The Town That Talks to the Dead and HBO Documentaries: No One Dies in Lily Dale
I wasn't sure what I was getting into with this book, but it turned out to be pretty decent. It isn't out to scare you and it isn't even particularly interested in the retelling of the stories themselves. What Ghostlnd does is ask us why we tell ghost stories, why the specific details change and are often fabricated entirely, and what impact they have on our culture as a whole. As a serious dissection of the ghost story itself, this book is interesting and well-written. The main downsides are that it can be dry, and it tends to repeat its key themes over and over.
All in all, know what you're getting into and you should find a decent number of interesting observations here.
