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Ghosting
When 64-year-old Grace Wellbeck thinks she sees the ghost of her first husband, she fears for her sanity and worries that she’s having another breakdown. Long-buried memories come thick and fast: from her early courtship in 1950s Blackpool to the dark reality of a violent marriage.
But the ghost turns out to be very real: a charismatic young man named Luke. And as Grace gets to know him she is jolted into an emotional awakening that brings her to a momentous decision.
Drawing on the literary tradition of madness, incarceration and escape, Jonathan Kemp delivers the triumphant coming of age of a woman in her sixties.
But the ghost turns out to be very real: a charismatic young man named Luke. And as Grace gets to know him she is jolted into an emotional awakening that brings her to a momentous decision.
Drawing on the literary tradition of madness, incarceration and escape, Jonathan Kemp delivers the triumphant coming of age of a woman in her sixties.
209 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 9, 2015
I loved this book so much, I just didn't want it to end - I wanted to stick with Grace, to know more about her future. And to share it with her - because, my goodness, it was going to be very interesting!! This was so not what I expected. It is not a ghost story in any way, unless one considers the past creeping up on you in all it's original intensity as 'ghosting'! Which is what this is all about. Grace's falling in love in the late 50's, her violent marriage (I could feel a couple of the blows as if my own face was in the way of this story), and the many, many losses that slowly followed from there.
Till one day, Grace decides she's lost quite enough. Oh, I felt for you Grace, I really did, and I cheered your uprising!!
Ghosting is haunting, funny, sad and invigorating - all at once. Five wonderful, bold stars for you Jonathan Kemp - you drew this marvellous lady so beautifully, I applaud your insight and respect.
My favourite lines from this little gem are :
"It seems so cruel that we have to grow old - like a punishment for having the audacity to stay alive."
&
"I don't take drugs, I'm sixty-four!' she says. "Nonsense,' he says, 'I've always said Ecstasy should be available free to the elderly. Old age is no place for sissies. That's when you need them most. Just relax and enjoy the high.'
And THIS high, I did. Thoroughly.
Till one day, Grace decides she's lost quite enough. Oh, I felt for you Grace, I really did, and I cheered your uprising!!
Ghosting is haunting, funny, sad and invigorating - all at once. Five wonderful, bold stars for you Jonathan Kemp - you drew this marvellous lady so beautifully, I applaud your insight and respect.
My favourite lines from this little gem are :
"It seems so cruel that we have to grow old - like a punishment for having the audacity to stay alive."
&
"I don't take drugs, I'm sixty-four!' she says. "Nonsense,' he says, 'I've always said Ecstasy should be available free to the elderly. Old age is no place for sissies. That's when you need them most. Just relax and enjoy the high.'
And THIS high, I did. Thoroughly.
February 23, 2016
How do we live with the spectres of the past: lost loves, lost children, years wasted in bitterness and regret? And, in living with lament, do we become ghosts ourselves?
This is a tale of how we haunt ourselves, how the torment of the past can desiccate us. It’s also a tale of unlocking self-imposed shackles.
Grace’s long-dead husband, Pete, has always been the dark shadow at her side, captured eternally in her memories of his initial love for her, and of his physical and emotional abuse; now, she believes he’s reappeared in the flesh.
Looking back, to four decades earlier, we hear: ‘…with each blow, her love for him diminished. She would say she loved him but she felt it less and less.’
Kemp has a talent for evoking a moment through a single image. Grace recalls: ‘pegging out their bedsheets for the first time and feeling as if she was pitching a flag on the summit of her happiness; declaring her joy to the world.’ He shows us not only a husband hated, but adored, and therein lies a tangled web.
There are memories too of a teenage daughter, who was lost emotionally to Grace long before her fatal drug overdose. Jonathan Kemp shows us the power of grief to place us out of joint with the world, disoriented, a form of madness, memories clanging a jarring bell.
Grace is adrift, failing to cope with the pain of the past. Her strategy of denial and containment has left her brittle. She’s barely breathing when we meet first meet her: a ghost of the self she once was.
Her cage is uniquely her own, but we all have our cages, inhabited by lovers long-ago-kissed, friends discarded, family members lost to us. They are the patterns woven into our personal tapestry, folded and put away, for what we avoid looking at we think we may forget.
Grace thinks: ‘What happens to all the pain you refuse to feel? Does the body store it perhaps, for a future date?’
I defy your heart not to ache for Grace and, in reading of her grief, to ache for yourself, for we are all haunted by the past, and by the transience of this life.
As Grace ponders: ‘Life happened. Only I feel like it happened without me, and I want it back so I can do it differently.’
As in The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Grace sees a woman crawling through the wall, trying to escape: a metaphor for her own effort to be free of what constrains her.
Kemp leads us through the female mind with insight, dark humour picking its way through dark themes. Grace wonders at what point her frustration will rob her of self-control. She recalls a friend of her mother’s who would carry a china saucer wrapped in a tea towel in her handbag, alongside a small hammer, ready for extraction in emergencies, to allow her to vent her anger. It must ‘go’ somewhere, or she’ll descend into madness, so she fears.
She pictures her thoughts as fishes, swimming inside the bowl of her skull; pictures herself ‘casting a line to catch them.’
At last, the mysterious apparition turns out to be Luke, whose youthful vitality and daring helps bring Grace back to life. While she locks her torment away, Luke uses performance art to purge his. Through their growing friendship, she realises that only she can release herself from grief’s burden.
Grace is: ‘becoming herself, and daily casting aside that fictitious self that people assume like a garment in which to appear before the world.’
She accepts life’s chaos, knowing ‘with a knowledge that somehow sets her free, all there is to know about life, which, nothing.’
The tale ends with Grace leaving behind her past, dropping her phone into the bin. She no longer feels the need for safe shelter. She’s ready to step into her future.
Grace notes, on visiting an art exhibition, that art is ‘a way of seeing’ and ‘a process’, ‘more than a product to be sold’. Some stories are told to enlighten us, to shine a small flame in the darkness of our haphazard ramblings, to show us the way. Kemp’s story is one such. It encourages us to ‘see’ the pain we carry with us and to set it free. The pages are ‘a product to be sold’ but they are also a personal message, of encouragement to heal, and to step into our own tomorrows.
This review, alongside others, also appears at www.emmanuelledemaupassant.com
September 5, 2016
Jonathan Kemp’s most recent novel, Ghosting, is an understated but highly assured piece of writing, a beautifully observed masterpiece of intimate gestures—what one might be tempted at first to call domestic magical realism, though ultimately the story and the characters who populate it are as down to earth as you or I. On a London street one morning, 64-year-old Grace believes she sees the ghost of her first husband, a man who abused her without mercy, and her emotional life is plunged into turmoil as she reexamines the painful past. A gorgeous, unassuming little novel of everyday life that rises well above the mundane, bright flashes of imagination shine through on every page, but it is Kemp’s deep sense of empathy that makes Ghosting a truly exceptional book.
Did not finish
September 29, 2015Included in my blog post Sampling September: Fiction by men, part 2.
The premise: At the start of Ghosting, Grace, a woman in her sixties, thinks she sees the ghost of her first husband. This triggers a series of long-buried memories, as she ruminates on her past. But... 'the ghost turns out to be very real: a charismatic young man named Luke. And as Grace gets to know him, she is jolted into an emotional awakening that brings her to a momentous decision.'
First line: It's just after nine am on a bright July morning when she first sees her dead husband.
What I read: Chapters 1-2 (20%).
Would I read the rest of it? Yes, I think so; I really like this so far, and it's very easy to read. The third-person narration is extremely simple and straightforward, stripped of any flowery language, and moves quickly through scenes from Grace's history. By chapter 2, the book has already covered, in flashbacks, the early development of Grace's relationship with Pete, her first husband, as well as the grim reality of their marriage. The ghost mentioned in the blurb hasn't actually turned up yet, though, which means I'm quite keen to read on at least far enough to see how that happens.
The premise: At the start of Ghosting, Grace, a woman in her sixties, thinks she sees the ghost of her first husband. This triggers a series of long-buried memories, as she ruminates on her past. But... 'the ghost turns out to be very real: a charismatic young man named Luke. And as Grace gets to know him, she is jolted into an emotional awakening that brings her to a momentous decision.'
First line: It's just after nine am on a bright July morning when she first sees her dead husband.
What I read: Chapters 1-2 (20%).
Would I read the rest of it? Yes, I think so; I really like this so far, and it's very easy to read. The third-person narration is extremely simple and straightforward, stripped of any flowery language, and moves quickly through scenes from Grace's history. By chapter 2, the book has already covered, in flashbacks, the early development of Grace's relationship with Pete, her first husband, as well as the grim reality of their marriage. The ghost mentioned in the blurb hasn't actually turned up yet, though, which means I'm quite keen to read on at least far enough to see how that happens.
April 11, 2015
She knows it’s futile to try to explain what’s going on inside her – she can’t even explain it to herself – so she makes no more reference to it, focusing instead on giving the best impression of herself she can.
One of the most painful aspects of mental distress and disorder can be the inability of other people to acknowledge the lived experience, the need to cover up for their sake an additional strain on an already fragile psyche. So no wonder Grace is relieved when her husband, Gordon, leaves her alone on their narrow-boat home to go on a fishing trip with a friend. A couple of days earlier Grace saw what she took to be the ghost of her deceased first husband, Pete, her deepest and most disturbing love. Gordon, fearing a repeat of the breakdown that had her hospitalised following the death of her teenage daughter, Hannah, wants her to go to the doctor. Grace herself just wants time to revisit the memories of the handsome man who used to beat her, and the daughter who withdrew into the solace of illegal highs.
Full review: http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
One of the most painful aspects of mental distress and disorder can be the inability of other people to acknowledge the lived experience, the need to cover up for their sake an additional strain on an already fragile psyche. So no wonder Grace is relieved when her husband, Gordon, leaves her alone on their narrow-boat home to go on a fishing trip with a friend. A couple of days earlier Grace saw what she took to be the ghost of her deceased first husband, Pete, her deepest and most disturbing love. Gordon, fearing a repeat of the breakdown that had her hospitalised following the death of her teenage daughter, Hannah, wants her to go to the doctor. Grace herself just wants time to revisit the memories of the handsome man who used to beat her, and the daughter who withdrew into the solace of illegal highs.
Full review: http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
August 6, 2015
This book annoyed me and I found it difficult to finish. It got slightly better toward the end but I almost didn't get there.
I expected for some reason this book to have a ghost, as it's called Ghosting, it doesn't. Not that I'm so into ghosts but at least one would presume if there was a ghost something would happen. Nothing really happens here, it's more a series of revelations than anything.
I did read London Triptych and thought it was much better.
At one point, and it should be noted this was BEFORE she did drugs, random objects start talking to the lead character:
"'So you're going, then?' she says to the mirror. Or did the mirror say it to her?"
and later
"Daft cow, the mirror says, and the wine glass agrees."
This is followed by a modern art presentation where a naked man sticks himself with needles until he is covered in blood. Then a 64 year-old woman taking MDMA at a rave at five a.m.
Crazy, and not for me.
I expected for some reason this book to have a ghost, as it's called Ghosting, it doesn't. Not that I'm so into ghosts but at least one would presume if there was a ghost something would happen. Nothing really happens here, it's more a series of revelations than anything.
I did read London Triptych and thought it was much better.
At one point, and it should be noted this was BEFORE she did drugs, random objects start talking to the lead character:
"'So you're going, then?' she says to the mirror. Or did the mirror say it to her?"
and later
"Daft cow, the mirror says, and the wine glass agrees."
This is followed by a modern art presentation where a naked man sticks himself with needles until he is covered in blood. Then a 64 year-old woman taking MDMA at a rave at five a.m.
Crazy, and not for me.
August 10, 2015
I like this book. I think that is the best way to describe the experience. The book wont stay with me but I enjoyed reading it. Grace is a 64 year old women who feels isolated and trapped in the life she has with her second husband Gordon living in a narrow boat on the Thames.
Until she sees the "ghost" of her husbands which sutras up memories which we are prior to as the narrative moves through Grace's tale of capturing freedom to a life that has become stale and unmoving.
Until she sees the "ghost" of her husbands which sutras up memories which we are prior to as the narrative moves through Grace's tale of capturing freedom to a life that has become stale and unmoving.
October 1, 2015
this book started slowly for me, just a following of the normal life of a middle aged woman.
Then slowly it become a dissection of her feelings, of her live, we knew what happened to her that marked her so much.
The end is very very powerful. how far will you be willing to go to disappear and leave behind your old life.
it makes you think, why do we put up with our day to day life, which will be the trigger that will make us wake up and look out for something else.
Then slowly it become a dissection of her feelings, of her live, we knew what happened to her that marked her so much.
The end is very very powerful. how far will you be willing to go to disappear and leave behind your old life.
it makes you think, why do we put up with our day to day life, which will be the trigger that will make us wake up and look out for something else.
November 5, 2015
I started this book on the train home from college and finished it the same night....couldn't put it down. So many lovely twists and turns and really interesting characters. Loved the twist in the middle!!
April 5, 2015
Fantastic read. Very excited about more from this author.
May 25, 2015
A lovely little read. A modern, grittier Awakening-- and perhaps the only novel I've read to depict a coming-of-age of a 60-something woman.
March 7, 2015
Ghosting is a short, but absolutely stunning novel. Jonathan Kemp has created a story that is both haunting and beautiful. His exploration of the human mind and the way that his lead character Grace's mind is affected by her grief and loss is so powerful.
Grace is an elderly lady who sees the ghost of her first husband. Seeing Pete's image brings back vivid, painful and terrifying memories and it is not until she sees the ghost again that she realises that it is not Pete's spirit, but a real man; Luke.
Luke looks so like Pete that Grace becomes consumed by her memories and by her present situation and makes the decision to change her life completely. The reader is treated to flash backs from Grace's life, we are taken back to her youth, the heady days of the late 1950s in Blackpool when she and Pete first met. As the novel progresses, we accompany Grace through the pain of her marriage to Pete and learn more about the loss, suffering and heartbreak that she has coped with during her life.
Mental illness, death, grief, loss and despair are the themes that run through Ghosting, and although these are dark and serious issues, the novel does at times, contain glints of black humour and lots of insight,
Grace finds herself caught up with people and in places that are totally alien to her, she encounters new ways of thinking and of living. Grace opens her mind and allows herself to be helped and guided by these new experiences, and in turn, Grace herself offers the wisdom of her years to the other characters.
Wonderfully crafted, Ghosting is a story that will remain with the reader long after the last page has been turned. A novel to savour, an author to admire.
March 31, 2015
I received this book free through Goodreads first reads.
This is quite a short book, which doesn't take long to read. I found it a fascinating read, as the main character Grace, explores her thoughts and feelings and comes to terms with events in her past and then begins to take control of her life and make the changes she longs for.
This is quite a short book, which doesn't take long to read. I found it a fascinating read, as the main character Grace, explores her thoughts and feelings and comes to terms with events in her past and then begins to take control of her life and make the changes she longs for.
July 30, 2019
I received this book as a Good Reads winner. I really enjoyed the story and found it hard to put down once I started. I liked the character of Grace and thought it very sad that it took her until age 64 to take control of her life, I was pleased when she managed to put her troubles behind her.
October 19, 2015
Really great read. Fast paced. Really liked how connected I felt to characters. A really solid 4 stars. Read in a sitting!
November 7, 2019
"They met at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. And just those two words were enough to make you want to go there."
These two sentences bothered me more than they perhaps should have. Surely that is three words?!? Or if you want it to be two words move "Blackpool" to a different place in the sentence.
The pacing of the story plods along as one thing happens, then another, then something from the past, and then something else happens. But I think the main thing was that I never believed Grace was 64 years old. Time travel is a delicate business and you have to make sure there are clues for the reader to know what time the story is in at any moment.
These two sentences bothered me more than they perhaps should have. Surely that is three words?!? Or if you want it to be two words move "Blackpool" to a different place in the sentence.
The pacing of the story plods along as one thing happens, then another, then something from the past, and then something else happens. But I think the main thing was that I never believed Grace was 64 years old. Time travel is a delicate business and you have to make sure there are clues for the reader to know what time the story is in at any moment.
June 13, 2020
Found this a really quick read! Couldn’t wait to read the next chapter! I wish it went on a little longer as I would of loved to know graces future
September 2, 2023
Nice little read, highly relatable.
May 25, 2015
Well this was an interesting read. I enjoyed it, but I'm not really sure what it was about.
A chance encounter with someone who looked like her dead [?] husband lead to a series of happenings, intertwined with times shifts to life with the said husband.
The connection, if connection there was was not resolved, like so much in this story.
I don't need all my loose ends tied up, and would definitely read more by this author, but perhaps a little more plot weaving would have helped.
***Plot spoiler alert from here***
I didn't really like the ending; I felt some empathy with the main character up till the point when she left her husband by text, just cos he wasn't very exciting, and didn't bother telling her son she had changed her mind about staying with him and threw away her mobile.
A chance encounter with someone who looked like her dead [?] husband lead to a series of happenings, intertwined with times shifts to life with the said husband.
The connection, if connection there was was not resolved, like so much in this story.
I don't need all my loose ends tied up, and would definitely read more by this author, but perhaps a little more plot weaving would have helped.
***Plot spoiler alert from here***
I didn't really like the ending; I felt some empathy with the main character up till the point when she left her husband by text, just cos he wasn't very exciting, and didn't bother telling her son she had changed her mind about staying with him and threw away her mobile.
September 21, 2015
I found this book tedious and predictable. The character of Grace was one dimensional and I found it impossible to feel any sympathy for her. It was with some relief that she got out of the van & walked away from Luke. Embarrassing older woman. There are plenty about! I speak as one of them
August 7, 2025
Very quick read, enjoyed it the whole way through but was a bit shocked by how suddenly it ended.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews