Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

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.

It is extremely upsetting when you finish reading a book so enjoyable as Aaron Mahnke's “The World of Lore” (despite its obvious flaws) and begin a book on the same subject that is dubious and is praised not only by the critics but also by academia. I can say that after three chapters, I find myself exhausted (if not annoyed) at reading Ghostlands. The succession of poor casuistic analysis to support a notorious skepticism depreciate all the interlocutors - already deceased - presented in this book. There is a clear pedantry in treating these people as victims of society or circumstances. At this point I do not even go further to discuss the existence or non-existence of the paranormal: even without resorting to supernatural explanations (because of his manifest skepticism), the author offers a reading that, although it is said to be multidisciplinary and in-depth, is contrastingly reductionist. When trying to debunk the paranormal discourses - seem here as cultural discourses only, socially constructed - the author does the same, creating a new set of cultural discourses which are equally socially constructed.

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This is a surprising book, and a surprisingly good book.

I purchased this book expecting a survey of haunted locations around America. I got that, but the author is a skeptic who essentially debunks every ghost story with the actual history. For example, I've always heard the story about the Winchester Mystery House, about how Mrs. Winchester kept her carpenters building “stairs to nowhere” because of a prophecy that the ghosts of those who had been murdered by a Winchester rifle would be kept away from the Winchester heir by the sound of carpentry.

Author Colin Dickey quickly and surprisingly debunks this story by pointing out that Mrs. Winchester was something of an architect and that mst of the architectural features of the “Mystery House” can be explained. He points out that the room where alleged seances happened couldn't have had seances and that the myth of the house developed over a time after Mrs. Winchester's death.

More importantly, Dickey uses the facts as a springboard into the role of “spiritualism” in female emancipation and the causes that led to it, as well as the likely reason that Mrs. Winchester was interested in architecture. Accordingly, we get an interesting slice of a world lost so very recently via the myth of the house.

Dickey applies a similar approach to stories featuring Indian graveyards causing haunted houses, the transient nature of Los Angeles, the popular misconception of decaying Detroit and other issues. Dickey comes across as a thoroughgoing rationalist, but whatever romance is lost as the ghost-lore disappears is more than made up for by the exposure of actual history.

I recently went on a San Francisco walking-ghost tour. The tour guide took us to various streets and houses around San Francisco. The ghost stories were fun, of course, albeit any sensible person took them with a grain of salt. What was the revelation to me of the tour was the history I learned. The guide casually pointed out houses from the mid-19th century that I would have gone by without a glance, he pointed out a corner where he told the fascinating story of a woman who helped run the Underground Railroad before coming to San Francisco, and he pointed out a house where an early female writer lived. She is all-but-forgotten but her writings deserve recognition, and the guide's purpose was to call her to the memory of moderns.

The guide's purpose sounded a lot like what I got from Colin Dickey's book. Ghost-tours, like literary tours, are one way of connecting modernity to history. This was an excellent book for that purpose and I recommend it.