Haunted Northwoods

by Tom Hollatz with Seal Dwyer

"You're not going to believe this, but . . ." is the beginning of most tales by Tom Hollatz. Ghost stories seem to grow from the pine-needle coated floor of the Northwoods. From haunted mansions on the shores of northern lakes to tales of the Wisconsin werewolf or a Minnesota town plagued by ghostly events, this book is full of tales sure to set any spine a tingle!

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Harris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve been going through my books lately, pulling stuff off the shelves I’d meant to read ages ago, grabbing this one as a thematic companion for a trip to the North Shore without expecting much more than a few interesting ghost stories I maybe hadn’t heard before to read surrounded by the actual Northwoods. Unfortunately, like most other books I’ve read by this publisher, The Haunted Northwoods did not even meet those expectations.

Perhaps the author might be a good storyteller, but lacking any editorial oversight or guidance, his writing is aimless, disorganized, and dull, repeating points while getting lost in superfluous details. Whatever interesting or unique ideas this hodgepodge of ghost and UFO stories focused on the Wisconsin-Michigan border might have had is lost in the muddled structure and lack of context, and I ended up feeling like I didn’t get anything out of them.

The first and longest story, for instance, a tale of a haunted mansion in Wisconsin known as “Summerwind” was a good case in point. I had not heard of it before, but in the first few paragraphs, I found myself lost as the author discusses becoming obsessed with it after reading an article (what article?) and mentioning that tales of the mansion had reached a fever pitch (how?), before getting distracted by a tangent about the 18th-century British explorer Jonathan Carver, who maybe had something to do with it? The Wikipedia article proved much more informative and interesting.

Of course, Wikipedia didn’t exist back in 2000, but I bet I could have found more coherent narratives about the Summerwind story had I searched it in Webcrawler or something. The lack of any sort of documentation of where these stories came from aside from the occasional “a man in Hayward told me this” made me often unsure of who was telling the story. It’s not like I’m demanding an annotated bibliography here, just a little more context.

[Mandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting little read about various haunted locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The first and the last stories are the best as the author did more research on these two locations. The others were primarily very quick tales, with little to no back story. Some sections were confusing to read as the author used first person narrative, but I didn't know at first that the story was actually from the perspective of the person he heard the story from and not the author himself.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining if you like books about local haunted places. Some of the stories could definitely use more details, but otherwise a fun read

[Jonny Parshall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hollatz often shifts from a journalistic explanation of events to descriptive narrative more at home in works of fiction. It's awkward to read but I didn't mind it. As a resident of Michigan's north woods with an interest in the paranormal, it made for an appropriate read.