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Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2020
"heartbreaking" – Washington Post
"a uniquely strange and wonderful work of literature" – Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
In his late thirties, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death.
In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands. He explores how these landscapes conjured and shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema, from the ghost stories and weird fiction of M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood to the children’s fantasy novels of Alan Garner and Susan Cooper; from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and Graham Swift’s Waterland to the archetypal ‘folk horror’ film The Wicker Man… Ghostland is Parnell’s moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.
"heartbreaking" – Washington Post
"a uniquely strange and wonderful work of literature" – Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
In his late thirties, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death.
In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands. He explores how these landscapes conjured and shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema, from the ghost stories and weird fiction of M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood to the children’s fantasy novels of Alan Garner and Susan Cooper; from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and Graham Swift’s Waterland to the archetypal ‘folk horror’ film The Wicker Man… Ghostland is Parnell’s moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.
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First published October 17, 2019
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About the author
Edward Parnell
6 books88 followersEdward Parnell is the author of the narrative non-fiction 'Ghostland' (William Collins), shortlisted for the 2020 PEN Ackerley Prize for memoir. He lives near Norwich in the UK and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He has been the recipient of an Escalator Award from the National Centre for Writing and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. 'The Listeners' (2014) was his first novel, and was the winner of the Rethink New Novels Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 252 reviews
April 9, 2020
I thought I was fairly well up on the classical English ghost story, especially as exemplified by M. R. James, but compared to Edward Parnell I am the merest novice. Besides James, I encountered lots of old friends, including Algernon Blackwood and E. F Benson, as well as new acquaintances such as W. H. Hodgson, whose House by the Borderland I may or may not finish. And Robert Aickman sounds most unpleasant. Kipling's They and Marklake Witches (with the touching Philadelphia Bucksteed) were marvels—I intend an homage to the latter sometime. But I am at a loss to categorize to what genre Parnell's book belongs: memoir, literary criticism, travel, or spooky psychology. On the back cover the splendid Cathi Unsworth calls it "Psychogeography" and that will do as well as anything. Basically the author visited the sites of most major works of supernatural fiction from the late 19th century to now, including not only literature but cinema and television too. And he writes about the role these locations play in his family history as well, most especially illness and death. He had the good fortune to grow up near one of my very favourite towns, King's Lynn, and much of the book takes place in that most haunted of counties, Norfolk. {Appropriately, the author has a degree from UEA.) But we travel all the way from Scotland to Land's End. Parnell is also a keen and knowledgeable birder, though sadly as an American I was unable to appreciate that aspect as we don't have proper birds here. The books is illustrated with photos, many the author's, and though many taken with a phone camera, are reproduced in black and white, in minute size, printed on wove paper, and decidedly eerie. They almost could be daguerreotypes, so well do they fit the content. If you are an aficionado of scary stories, this book is a must read.
January 19, 2021
I read a lot of books. I am an eclectic reader. This book is unlike any I have ever read before encompassing, as it does, biographies of authors, travel writing, natural history, film criticism and memoir. It is a stunningly unique work.
I loved it.
I loved it more than any other book I can remember.
I loved it for the nostalgia it sparked; for the tales of writers who set out to freeze the blood in your veins through fear; for the descriptions of the birds I hope one day to spot, for the descriptions of desolate drizzly British locations that certain individuals (myself included) travel to to look at a pile of ancient stones or a house that was home to a writer or inspired a tale; for the beautifully heart-crushing depiction of loss and the complicated feeling of subsequent grief.
I loved this book and I pity those of you who have not yet read this gem, your life is the poorer for it.
I loved it.
I loved it more than any other book I can remember.
I loved it for the nostalgia it sparked; for the tales of writers who set out to freeze the blood in your veins through fear; for the descriptions of the birds I hope one day to spot, for the descriptions of desolate drizzly British locations that certain individuals (myself included) travel to to look at a pile of ancient stones or a house that was home to a writer or inspired a tale; for the beautifully heart-crushing depiction of loss and the complicated feeling of subsequent grief.
I loved this book and I pity those of you who have not yet read this gem, your life is the poorer for it.
September 30, 2024
3.75 stars
This is an unusual mixture. It is part memoir, part travelogue around Britain, part birdwatcher’s diary, part review of 60s and 70s horror films, part review of ghost and spooky stories and part homage to 70s TV. It is a memoir of grief and loss as it charts the death of his parents (both quite young) and of his brother (also youngish). Parnell entwines all these themes together in chapters related to areas of the country and authors. The areas of the country include East Anglia and the fens, Dorset, Cornwall, Dungeness and Ayrshire amongst others. The authors include M R James, Arthur Machen, Blackwood, Alan Garner, William Hope Hodgson and Sebald. It all feels cathartic and linked Parnell seeking “reconciliation with the ghosts of the past”.
Parnell also looks at films like The Wicker Man and The Child. ren of the Stones. He also considers some of the ghost stories the BBC produced in the 1970s: the stand out one being Jonathan Miller’s adaptation of M R James’s “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to you My Lad”. He also examines the British public information films of the 1970s. I remember them and frankly some of them were terrifying (they were meant to be).
This is an interesting combination of themes. The individual parts work, but I am not entirely convinced they work as a whole. I did like the black and white photographs and it certainly brought back memories of some of the films and TV of my childhood. I also liked the way Parnell linked some of the works with place, but there was a bit too much plain reviewing and retelling of a story. To balance that the working out of the aspects of memoir and grief and the linking with literature was effective.
This is an unusual mixture. It is part memoir, part travelogue around Britain, part birdwatcher’s diary, part review of 60s and 70s horror films, part review of ghost and spooky stories and part homage to 70s TV. It is a memoir of grief and loss as it charts the death of his parents (both quite young) and of his brother (also youngish). Parnell entwines all these themes together in chapters related to areas of the country and authors. The areas of the country include East Anglia and the fens, Dorset, Cornwall, Dungeness and Ayrshire amongst others. The authors include M R James, Arthur Machen, Blackwood, Alan Garner, William Hope Hodgson and Sebald. It all feels cathartic and linked Parnell seeking “reconciliation with the ghosts of the past”.
Parnell also looks at films like The Wicker Man and The Child. ren of the Stones. He also considers some of the ghost stories the BBC produced in the 1970s: the stand out one being Jonathan Miller’s adaptation of M R James’s “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to you My Lad”. He also examines the British public information films of the 1970s. I remember them and frankly some of them were terrifying (they were meant to be).
This is an interesting combination of themes. The individual parts work, but I am not entirely convinced they work as a whole. I did like the black and white photographs and it certainly brought back memories of some of the films and TV of my childhood. I also liked the way Parnell linked some of the works with place, but there was a bit too much plain reviewing and retelling of a story. To balance that the working out of the aspects of memoir and grief and the linking with literature was effective.
March 19, 2021
Edward Parnell’s book is a work of memory and an act of remembrance, he opens with his childhood fascination with the ghostly then takes his readers on a tour of the books, films and programmes that have haunted his imagination, tracing their origins through their writers and the places they feature. He goes back to the spaces where authors like M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and William Hope Hodgson once lived or wanders the landscapes that inspired their work. He passes through the areas and architecture featured in folk horror like “The Wicker Man” or classic children’s stories like the marvellous “The Children of Green Knowe.” Sometimes his journey reads like an idiosyncratic tour of Britain but as it unfolds, Parnell reveals more and more about his own life and the terrible personal losses that continue to fill him with yearning and unease.
It’s very difficult to assess this as a whole, it varies so much in quality and its structure's a little ramshackle at times - there are stretches that primarily consist of rehashing details of Parnell’s chosen narratives or suddenly segue into potted author biographies. At other points this feels more in the tradition of a conventional travelogue, but then there are passages that feature unnerving, powerful and melancholy accounts of Parnell’s intense feelings of loss and grief. As an introduction or overview of the weird or supernatural outpourings of twentieth-century British fiction writers it’s a very decent offering although any committed fan of these genres will, like me, most likely already recognise a great deal of the material he references. But it’s also a fascinating snapshot of the cultural influences underpinning one man’s life, the texts returned to over and over again that offer the nostalgic solace of the familiar and provide a means of warding off or laying to rest the spectres of a painful past.
It’s very difficult to assess this as a whole, it varies so much in quality and its structure's a little ramshackle at times - there are stretches that primarily consist of rehashing details of Parnell’s chosen narratives or suddenly segue into potted author biographies. At other points this feels more in the tradition of a conventional travelogue, but then there are passages that feature unnerving, powerful and melancholy accounts of Parnell’s intense feelings of loss and grief. As an introduction or overview of the weird or supernatural outpourings of twentieth-century British fiction writers it’s a very decent offering although any committed fan of these genres will, like me, most likely already recognise a great deal of the material he references. But it’s also a fascinating snapshot of the cultural influences underpinning one man’s life, the texts returned to over and over again that offer the nostalgic solace of the familiar and provide a means of warding off or laying to rest the spectres of a painful past.
June 20, 2021
Always the ghosts.
At one point in his Ghostland, Edward Parnell quotes a character from a Walter de la Mare ghost story “Seaton’s Aunt”:
Why, after all, how much do we really understand of anything? We don’t even know our own histories, and not a tenth, not a tenth of the reasons.
Ghostland is unclassifiable, a book of many parts. But it is, first and foremost, a book about histories. And like Seaton, Parnell starts with his own history, digging deep into his memory (and in family photo albums) to piece together the story of growing up with his parents and his brother Chris. There are happy snaps of early family holidays and bird-hunting trips. But, as Edward grows older (and as his story/history progresses) he has to face more harrowing memories of the illness, suffering and death which visit his closest and dearest. One cannot but suspect that Parnell had suppressed many of these bleaker memories and that writing Ghostland was a way in which the ghost of these past images could be summoned and their pain exorcised.
Perhaps it is the very intimacy of this exercise which leads the author to adopt his unusual approach to memoir. Ghostland could easily have became a straightforward autobiography or one of those “true life books” for which there is always a hungry market. Instead, Parnell opts to keep his own history at arm’s length and to use as “interlocutor” with his memories the ghost stories, weird tales and horror movies which he loved so much as a boy and which are still his passion (Parnell himself his written a critically acclaimed ghost novel).
Parnell realizes that these works of fiction are very much shaped by their authors’ own histories and by the landscapes where they were written and set. He sets of on a pilgrimage of the British Isles whose stops are the places which inspired the great writers of ghostly fiction. Readers who share Parnell’s enthusiasm for the genre will find much to enjoy in this regard. M.R. James, Arthur Machen, L.P.Hartley, Charles Dickens, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Aickman, Alan Garner … these are some of the authors whose works (and lives) are discussed in the book. But Parnell’s omnivorous love of the ghostly goes beyond the written word – he also ventures into film and tv, in sections about the folk-horror movies, the cult BBC adaptations of ghost stories at Christmas and even dark public information films from the 1970’s such as “Apaches” and “Lonely Water”.
Ghostland is subtitled “In Search of a Haunted Country” and it often has the feel of a travelogue. Indeed, Parnell exploration of the ghostly and weird is anything but “desk-based”. Whilst the biographical and bibliographical details are well-researched, what gives this book its idiosyncratic feel is the “sense of place” which gives a context to the works discussed. I particularly liked, for instance, the description of Parnell’s impromptu visit to the house in Borth, Wales where William Hope Hodgson penned The House on the Borderland, and his account of revisiting the Norfolk Fens which inspired W.G. Sebald’s autofiction and which Parnell remembers as childhood haunts.
Because, as the author himself admits, it is always the ghosts… These journeys into the uncanny inevitably and repeatedly lead back to the ghosts of Parnell’s past. Invariably, the stations on this idiosyncratic pilgrimage spark personal memories. And as the book nears its end, Parnell must face the terrors of the illness and death of his loved ones. The book is poignant throughout but, in its last chapters, it is emotionally devastating. I cannot start to imagine what challenge it must have been for the author to write the final pages. As readers, we cannot but feel honoured to be allowed to share his most intimate feelings.
For an illustrated version of this review, visit https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
At one point in his Ghostland, Edward Parnell quotes a character from a Walter de la Mare ghost story “Seaton’s Aunt”:
Why, after all, how much do we really understand of anything? We don’t even know our own histories, and not a tenth, not a tenth of the reasons.
Ghostland is unclassifiable, a book of many parts. But it is, first and foremost, a book about histories. And like Seaton, Parnell starts with his own history, digging deep into his memory (and in family photo albums) to piece together the story of growing up with his parents and his brother Chris. There are happy snaps of early family holidays and bird-hunting trips. But, as Edward grows older (and as his story/history progresses) he has to face more harrowing memories of the illness, suffering and death which visit his closest and dearest. One cannot but suspect that Parnell had suppressed many of these bleaker memories and that writing Ghostland was a way in which the ghost of these past images could be summoned and their pain exorcised.
Perhaps it is the very intimacy of this exercise which leads the author to adopt his unusual approach to memoir. Ghostland could easily have became a straightforward autobiography or one of those “true life books” for which there is always a hungry market. Instead, Parnell opts to keep his own history at arm’s length and to use as “interlocutor” with his memories the ghost stories, weird tales and horror movies which he loved so much as a boy and which are still his passion (Parnell himself his written a critically acclaimed ghost novel).
Parnell realizes that these works of fiction are very much shaped by their authors’ own histories and by the landscapes where they were written and set. He sets of on a pilgrimage of the British Isles whose stops are the places which inspired the great writers of ghostly fiction. Readers who share Parnell’s enthusiasm for the genre will find much to enjoy in this regard. M.R. James, Arthur Machen, L.P.Hartley, Charles Dickens, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Aickman, Alan Garner … these are some of the authors whose works (and lives) are discussed in the book. But Parnell’s omnivorous love of the ghostly goes beyond the written word – he also ventures into film and tv, in sections about the folk-horror movies, the cult BBC adaptations of ghost stories at Christmas and even dark public information films from the 1970’s such as “Apaches” and “Lonely Water”.
Ghostland is subtitled “In Search of a Haunted Country” and it often has the feel of a travelogue. Indeed, Parnell exploration of the ghostly and weird is anything but “desk-based”. Whilst the biographical and bibliographical details are well-researched, what gives this book its idiosyncratic feel is the “sense of place” which gives a context to the works discussed. I particularly liked, for instance, the description of Parnell’s impromptu visit to the house in Borth, Wales where William Hope Hodgson penned The House on the Borderland, and his account of revisiting the Norfolk Fens which inspired W.G. Sebald’s autofiction and which Parnell remembers as childhood haunts.
Because, as the author himself admits, it is always the ghosts… These journeys into the uncanny inevitably and repeatedly lead back to the ghosts of Parnell’s past. Invariably, the stations on this idiosyncratic pilgrimage spark personal memories. And as the book nears its end, Parnell must face the terrors of the illness and death of his loved ones. The book is poignant throughout but, in its last chapters, it is emotionally devastating. I cannot start to imagine what challenge it must have been for the author to write the final pages. As readers, we cannot but feel honoured to be allowed to share his most intimate feelings.
For an illustrated version of this review, visit https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
April 6, 2020
Edward Parnell's quasi-memoir is a ramble through Britain's ancient, haunted places, with the author touching on various works of horror literature as he attempts to deal with the devastating effects of a series of family deaths. Being a combination of psychogeography, literary criticism, and personal history, it – maybe inevitably – isn't truly satisfying in any of those categories, though it is beautifully crafted. Like most others of its type, Ghostland rarely references anything written or made after the mid-20th century, and most of its touchstones, such as M.R. James, Alan Garner and The Wicker Man, are mainstays of such studies. I enjoyed the book as I was reading it, and Parnell's descriptions certainly do a good job of mentally transporting the reader to various eerie locations. None of it has particularly stuck with me, however; it all feels a bit ephemeral... ghostly, perhaps?
TinyLetter
TinyLetter
November 17, 2019
Subtitled, “In Search of a Haunted Country,” this is a moving memoir of family, loss, literature and nature. Author, Edward Parnell, tells of how he was always obsessed by ghosts, as a child. As the book progresses , in a slow, winding, meander, through family history, Parnell muses on his love of ghost stories and early television programmes and films.
This book will certainly make you want to revisit old favourites, as well as discovering new authors. Along the way, he talks of M.R. James, Lucy M. Boston, Alan Garner, William Hope Hodgson, Kipling and many others. There were also films that I also remembered from childhood, such as “The Wicker Man,” and British folklore and superstitions. He visits many houses, woods and rivers, and winds the stories of the landscape into that of literature. This a moving, poignant read, of family loss, which I found a moving read.
This book will certainly make you want to revisit old favourites, as well as discovering new authors. Along the way, he talks of M.R. James, Lucy M. Boston, Alan Garner, William Hope Hodgson, Kipling and many others. There were also films that I also remembered from childhood, such as “The Wicker Man,” and British folklore and superstitions. He visits many houses, woods and rivers, and winds the stories of the landscape into that of literature. This a moving, poignant read, of family loss, which I found a moving read.
Read
January 30, 2020An odd, unclassifiable mix of memoir, travelogue, lit crit and nature writing. The author travels round the UK to its more haunting (not -ed) locations, places lined with ghost stories, folk horror, Hammer films etc. If you love MR James and Vincent Price this book is for you. It's interspersed with birdwatching and vividly written about the landscapes, both plants and buildings. And there is also the ongoing thread of him writing about personal tragedy: multiple members of his family dying from cancer.
It's beautifully written and elegiac but I found myself a bit unsatisfied at the end. Possibly because we never quite confront the connection between the enjoyment of fictional horror, body horror, doom, and death that's interwoven with the reality of those things in the family story, which makes the literary part eventually feel a bit trivial. Maybe that's the point.
It's beautifully written and elegiac but I found myself a bit unsatisfied at the end. Possibly because we never quite confront the connection between the enjoyment of fictional horror, body horror, doom, and death that's interwoven with the reality of those things in the family story, which makes the literary part eventually feel a bit trivial. Maybe that's the point.
October 8, 2024
It's not the house that is haunted. It's me.
And I want to be; I have to be.
I’m humble and a bit damaged. The only ghosts I know are in my head. Similar to the author, I viewed an excessive numbers of horror films as a child. I’ve since experienced loss, but unlike the author—thankfully not of such a sweeping total. I first opened this at a therapist’s office. I won’t say my therapist as I haven’t went back. I felt compelled out of grief. I have since metabolized my mourning into some other form.
This book isn’t exactly nature writing nor psychogeography. It is a critical work on literature and film and more so a memoir, an account of serial loss. There's considerable bird watching and a blank, damning silence. It isn’t an exaggeration to state that it blew my mind. It is also an appropriate gateway to weird and disturbing fiction.
And I want to be; I have to be.
I’m humble and a bit damaged. The only ghosts I know are in my head. Similar to the author, I viewed an excessive numbers of horror films as a child. I’ve since experienced loss, but unlike the author—thankfully not of such a sweeping total. I first opened this at a therapist’s office. I won’t say my therapist as I haven’t went back. I felt compelled out of grief. I have since metabolized my mourning into some other form.
This book isn’t exactly nature writing nor psychogeography. It is a critical work on literature and film and more so a memoir, an account of serial loss. There's considerable bird watching and a blank, damning silence. It isn’t an exaggeration to state that it blew my mind. It is also an appropriate gateway to weird and disturbing fiction.
February 23, 2021
jeez louise, SO GOOD -- ticked every reader box I have.
full post is here:
http://www.nonfictionrealstuff.com/20...
Given that I have an intense passion for old ghost stories and weird fiction, it's surprising that I hadn't heard of Ghostland until I started seeing a number of reader reviews of it on Goodreads. It was so highly regarded that I knew I had to read it, and once picked up it was not put down. That's how very good it is. It is all at once a book of psychogeography, a chronicle of family, memories, travel, and nature; and at its very heart, a beautiful, moving memoir of grief. And if that isn't enough to whet anyone's appetite, in Ghostland Parnell also treads the ground walked by some of Britain's most famous writers of ghost stories and the weird.
At one point at the beginnng of this book, the author is leaving after a visit to Livemere, childhood home of MR James, thinking about "the final words of James' last published story, 'A Vignette' "
"Are there here and there sequestered places which some curious creatures still frequent, whom once upon a time anybody could see and speak to as they went about on their daily occasions, whereas now only at rare intervals in a series of years does one cross their paths and become aware of them?"
As he makes his way around to explore the locations from the books, movies, television shows and short stories that he enjoyed so much as a boy and then later as a young man, he discusses these works and writes about the authors themselves, recalls childhood memories, and slowly reveals the story of his "phantom family -- a host of lives lived, then unlived" in an attempt to help him "reconcile the real and the half-remembered."
While I won't go into very much here, one of the key ideas that runs through this book is the link between landscape and the work of these writers -- and how awareness of their environment seemed to have been embedded within themselves as much as it has been embedded in their writing. There are more than mere traces to be found in, as the back-cover blurb notes, "the ancient stones, stark shores and folkloric woodlands of Britain's spectered isle," as well as the inland waterways (and I'm so happy he mentioned Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Three Miles Up" which is one of the most frightening stories I've ever read -- and beware, the film version is not quite the same), graveyards, and more, including the stone rings, hills, and other features found in Arthur Machen's work, or Ithell Colquhoun's wild Cornwall, to mention only a few of the many places he visits. But landscape, nature and place also have personal connections for Mr. Parnell -- they evoke memories of family, which he can now remember not in terms of "disquiet" but rather as "reassuring." His journey is related here much along the same lines as W.G. Sebald's Suffolk journey chronicled in The Rings of Saturn (another recent, excellent read) down to the photos embedded within the text.
It is one of the most beautiful books I've read, a poignant way in which the author finds a way to try to express "what is haunting him," as well as a way in which to try to "lay to rest the ghosts" of his "own sequestered past." I cannot recommend this one highly enough ... I'm sure I will go through it again many times. An absolute no-miss for readers (like me) who thoroughly enjoy old ghost stories, and especially for readers who (also like me) are lovers of weird fiction.
full post is here:
http://www.nonfictionrealstuff.com/20...
Given that I have an intense passion for old ghost stories and weird fiction, it's surprising that I hadn't heard of Ghostland until I started seeing a number of reader reviews of it on Goodreads. It was so highly regarded that I knew I had to read it, and once picked up it was not put down. That's how very good it is. It is all at once a book of psychogeography, a chronicle of family, memories, travel, and nature; and at its very heart, a beautiful, moving memoir of grief. And if that isn't enough to whet anyone's appetite, in Ghostland Parnell also treads the ground walked by some of Britain's most famous writers of ghost stories and the weird.
At one point at the beginnng of this book, the author is leaving after a visit to Livemere, childhood home of MR James, thinking about "the final words of James' last published story, 'A Vignette' "
"Are there here and there sequestered places which some curious creatures still frequent, whom once upon a time anybody could see and speak to as they went about on their daily occasions, whereas now only at rare intervals in a series of years does one cross their paths and become aware of them?"
As he makes his way around to explore the locations from the books, movies, television shows and short stories that he enjoyed so much as a boy and then later as a young man, he discusses these works and writes about the authors themselves, recalls childhood memories, and slowly reveals the story of his "phantom family -- a host of lives lived, then unlived" in an attempt to help him "reconcile the real and the half-remembered."
While I won't go into very much here, one of the key ideas that runs through this book is the link between landscape and the work of these writers -- and how awareness of their environment seemed to have been embedded within themselves as much as it has been embedded in their writing. There are more than mere traces to be found in, as the back-cover blurb notes, "the ancient stones, stark shores and folkloric woodlands of Britain's spectered isle," as well as the inland waterways (and I'm so happy he mentioned Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Three Miles Up" which is one of the most frightening stories I've ever read -- and beware, the film version is not quite the same), graveyards, and more, including the stone rings, hills, and other features found in Arthur Machen's work, or Ithell Colquhoun's wild Cornwall, to mention only a few of the many places he visits. But landscape, nature and place also have personal connections for Mr. Parnell -- they evoke memories of family, which he can now remember not in terms of "disquiet" but rather as "reassuring." His journey is related here much along the same lines as W.G. Sebald's Suffolk journey chronicled in The Rings of Saturn (another recent, excellent read) down to the photos embedded within the text.
It is one of the most beautiful books I've read, a poignant way in which the author finds a way to try to express "what is haunting him," as well as a way in which to try to "lay to rest the ghosts" of his "own sequestered past." I cannot recommend this one highly enough ... I'm sure I will go through it again many times. An absolute no-miss for readers (like me) who thoroughly enjoy old ghost stories, and especially for readers who (also like me) are lovers of weird fiction.
April 15, 2020
'Ghostland' is an always readable and thoroughly interesting book, but it ends up falling between several stools. As a memoir, it is moving (Parnell's personal losses are painful) yet at the same time rather mysterious. It tells us a great deal about what happened to his parents and brother, but conveys little about the author himself, or how it must feel to live under the shadow of a familial disease. I kept being reminded of the narrator of Kipling's great story, 'They', who talks about everything but the event which leads him to drive aimlessly around the Sussex countryside. For every train-spotterly detail of old TV, books or ornithology here, there is something missing about Parnell himself. Perhaps appropriately, in this book of ghosts he never comes wholly to life.
As a guide to ghost stories, their authors, and the landscape which to varying extents inspired them, the book is informative and intriguing. Parnell wanders Arthur Machen's Caerleon, M.R. James's East Anglia and William Hope Hodgson's Wales to often fascinating effect, though there is also a sense that what he discovers is often trivial rather than revelatory. The engagement with works such as Garner's 'The Owl Service' remains superficial and blokey, with parallels with other texts popping up in a 'this reminds me of' blog-style that leads nowhere. Something similar could be said about Parnell as a bird-watcher, in that he's a great one for ticking off species in his big book of birding but conveys little of the experience of seeing the birds themselves.
One can't not be moved by some of the personal material in this book, and it may be that the absence of answers or genuine 'closure' is the right way for it to end. Nevertheless, 'Ghostland' doesn't quite fulfil its promise. It doesn't really ever to grips with the appeal of ghost stories or why the writers of the British Isles have long been so good at writing them. It says what's been said before, many times, about 'folk horror', and often reminds me of having a conversation with someone in a pub about our favourite TV shows...assuming that person is an acolyte of W.G. Sebald, of course.
Overall then, I've given this 3* because a) I can't give it 3.5, and b) because although there are lots of lovely moments along the way, it ends up being somewhat aimless.
As a guide to ghost stories, their authors, and the landscape which to varying extents inspired them, the book is informative and intriguing. Parnell wanders Arthur Machen's Caerleon, M.R. James's East Anglia and William Hope Hodgson's Wales to often fascinating effect, though there is also a sense that what he discovers is often trivial rather than revelatory. The engagement with works such as Garner's 'The Owl Service' remains superficial and blokey, with parallels with other texts popping up in a 'this reminds me of' blog-style that leads nowhere. Something similar could be said about Parnell as a bird-watcher, in that he's a great one for ticking off species in his big book of birding but conveys little of the experience of seeing the birds themselves.
One can't not be moved by some of the personal material in this book, and it may be that the absence of answers or genuine 'closure' is the right way for it to end. Nevertheless, 'Ghostland' doesn't quite fulfil its promise. It doesn't really ever to grips with the appeal of ghost stories or why the writers of the British Isles have long been so good at writing them. It says what's been said before, many times, about 'folk horror', and often reminds me of having a conversation with someone in a pub about our favourite TV shows...assuming that person is an acolyte of W.G. Sebald, of course.
Overall then, I've given this 3* because a) I can't give it 3.5, and b) because although there are lots of lovely moments along the way, it ends up being somewhat aimless.
May 24, 2021
How did the English moors, hills and ancient stones shape its literature and film industry? Edward Parnell examines the impact of the landscape and its supernatural capacities in the work of M.R. James, Arthur Machen, Alan Garner, W.G. Sebald, Graham Swift and Thomas Hardy, amongst others. The places he visits deeply resonate within his own past, as he used to visit these places with his parents and his brother Chris - one by one consumed by cancer, as it turns out.
Ghostland is more than just another landscaping-psychology narrative, it's also a memoir and a testimony of loss and grief. Parnells fascination with ghosts is a refusal to let go once and for all, his haunting is voluntary, his story therefore very gripping and universal: ' It's not the hause that is haunted. It's me. And I want to be; I have to be. Because if I give them up -if I stop looking back -everything that ever happened to us will cease to exist.'
Ghostland is more than just another landscaping-psychology narrative, it's also a memoir and a testimony of loss and grief. Parnells fascination with ghosts is a refusal to let go once and for all, his haunting is voluntary, his story therefore very gripping and universal: ' It's not the hause that is haunted. It's me. And I want to be; I have to be. Because if I give them up -if I stop looking back -everything that ever happened to us will cease to exist.'
June 17, 2022
This is a poignant exploration of memories and ghosts and grief. Parnell wanders around the British Isles in search of haunted and forgotten places connected to his favourite authors, (Machen, Blackwood, Garner, Sebald, Benson to name a few); as well as family holiday destinations and places he visited with his brother to birdwatch. On the way his family history is slowly revealed.
Through the course of the book we learn more about his fascination with ghost stories (he began reading them as a child), and the reason he returns to them again and again - in a way a coping mechanism for grief.
If you're a fan of all the supernatural greats then you will undoubtedly enjoy this volume. I found lots of interest, even about authors I believed I was informed about. At times it does jump around rather and has the tendancy to drift off places becoming more like a collage of places, people and phantasms (which in actual fact makes perfect sense!) but overall a very good book.
Through the course of the book we learn more about his fascination with ghost stories (he began reading them as a child), and the reason he returns to them again and again - in a way a coping mechanism for grief.
If you're a fan of all the supernatural greats then you will undoubtedly enjoy this volume. I found lots of interest, even about authors I believed I was informed about. At times it does jump around rather and has the tendancy to drift off places becoming more like a collage of places, people and phantasms (which in actual fact makes perfect sense!) but overall a very good book.
February 26, 2020
Losing one family member early to cancer is a tragedy. But losing both parents and a brother to the disease is several levels above that. It is at times like this that looking back over your past for things that were comforting can help. For Edward Parnell, this meant heading back to his bookshelves to look for the stories that he was obsessed with as a boy. This was ghost stories from a raft of favourite authors and the other weird fiction that was generally found nudging up against these books in the library.
To relive some of those stories he wanted to get under the skin of his favourite authors, Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood to name a few in the book. That means travelling to the places that the authors placed their stories in. Whilst these places are not specifically haunted, he is not looking for ghosts per se, but seeking the places that have a creepy element about them. Whilst there here he is trying to find just why the authors rooted their stories there.
It is a book that defies categorisation really. It is part memoir, part family saga, part travel book and all centred around the books that he is remising about. I have only heard of a couple of the authors that he mentions and must admit to reading very few of them. Yet after reading this I now have a list of authors whose works I want to try at some point. I hadn’t been to many of the places that he writes about, so it was interesting learning about the context of them with regards to the books. However, I do know two of them really well, as they are close to where I live in Dorset. Badbury Rings is an Iron Age Hill Fort, and I have been on and around it at night and it doesn’t feel that creepy. Knowlton though can be really quite sinister at night…
This is a timely book too, I think that he has tapped into the growing interest in folk horror, that zines like Weird walk and Hellebore are publishing for, and there is that amazing Hookland too if you have the faintest interest the otherworldliness of the British Countryside. Most of all it is touching eulogy to his beloved family members and a fitting memory for them.
To relive some of those stories he wanted to get under the skin of his favourite authors, Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood to name a few in the book. That means travelling to the places that the authors placed their stories in. Whilst these places are not specifically haunted, he is not looking for ghosts per se, but seeking the places that have a creepy element about them. Whilst there here he is trying to find just why the authors rooted their stories there.
It is a book that defies categorisation really. It is part memoir, part family saga, part travel book and all centred around the books that he is remising about. I have only heard of a couple of the authors that he mentions and must admit to reading very few of them. Yet after reading this I now have a list of authors whose works I want to try at some point. I hadn’t been to many of the places that he writes about, so it was interesting learning about the context of them with regards to the books. However, I do know two of them really well, as they are close to where I live in Dorset. Badbury Rings is an Iron Age Hill Fort, and I have been on and around it at night and it doesn’t feel that creepy. Knowlton though can be really quite sinister at night…
This is a timely book too, I think that he has tapped into the growing interest in folk horror, that zines like Weird walk and Hellebore are publishing for, and there is that amazing Hookland too if you have the faintest interest the otherworldliness of the British Countryside. Most of all it is touching eulogy to his beloved family members and a fitting memory for them.
February 2, 2021
What a wonderful book with which to finish my 2019 reading and to start 2020. Ghostland feels in many ways to be a book I've been waiting for for years, surveying as it does, Britain's rich heritage of ghost stories, folk horror and otherworldly fiction and drama. Over a leisurely 431 pages, Edward Parnell covers all the main bases: M.R. James, the Bensons, Arthur Machen, Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, the horrific public information films of the seventies and eighties, W. G. Sebald and a host of other writers, major and minor. Sebald's influence is apparent beyond the chapter devoted to The Rings of Saturn and The Emigrants in the grainy, captionless photos that are liberally scattered through the text, and in the fact that the author's journeys in search of Britain's haunted literature provide a vehicle for a darker journey in pursuit of some very personal ghosts. Entertaining, informative and moving in equal measure, Ghostland is a thoroughly rewarding read and just right for filling the dark days between Christmas and New Year.
February 6, 2020
Parnell’s book tells of his own journey through ghostly literature, and is in addition a memoir, a search on his part for a sort of spiritual consolation. He has a need to visit the places that have been the setting for the ghost stories that have been influential to him over the years, not to find solace or answers, but because there he finds some response to the psychological trauma he has suffered.
The book works well not only in this regard, but also in bringing the reader’s attention to stories we had long forgotten, or never even knew existed.
The book works well not only in this regard, but also in bringing the reader’s attention to stories we had long forgotten, or never even knew existed.
January 10, 2020
I loved Ghostland. The descriptions of nature and landscapes, particularly, are stunning. It explores so many things I love and am familiar with - ghosts, ghost stories, birdwatching, Norfolk. I do need to read something that won’t make me cry now, though.
January 20, 2022
Parnell’s Ghostland offers the reader a glimpse into his childhood and deep-rooted grief through the lens of the British landscape and the haunting stories it has inspired through the years.
Part nature writing, part memoir, part film and literary criticism, this is a book that eschews any one category in favour of a more general look into the landscape and its ghosts. Parnell shows glimpses into the lives of much-loved writers such as M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, as he traverses the lands they grew up in and which likely (or more blatantly) inspired their works. Alongside this he delves into the stories themselves, taking us to the moment he first discovered them and emoting the impact they had on him. It’s a fascinating insight for those with a love of the genre; anyone with a penchant for classic Hammer Horror, Ghost Stories for Christmas, or folk horror will find much to love here. Parnell also includes the reader in his love for birdwatching, introducing different species and the ways in which he first encountered them, sometimes to a chilling effect. His descriptions of the random acts of cruelty witnessed within nature are almost cinematically conveyed, instilling a pit of dread within the reader to remind us of the journeys inevitable end.
The aspect of this book that perhaps resonates the most is Parnell’s gradual revelation of his own grief and trauma. Without giving anything away (it’s best to go into this not knowing anything for the strongest emotional impact), the scenes and atmosphere he describes from his favourite childhood films and stories often mirror the authors own inner despair. The beautifully vivid accounts of Parnell’s memories have the reader walking right beside him, witnessing these events unfold as he does.
Overall, the book is a slow-burner, and I would say it’s not for those with only an interest in the biography aspect. Throughout most of the text Parnell goes into great detail about those beloved classic horrors and the relevant areas of Britain, with flashes of his own experiences mingled within. The latter half of the book is when we get the true impact of the authors mission and what those disturbing images really represent for him. It’s beautifully written, vivid, emotive, and for a firmly established lover of the weird and supernatural, as well as the mysteries of the British landscape, an enthralling read.
Part nature writing, part memoir, part film and literary criticism, this is a book that eschews any one category in favour of a more general look into the landscape and its ghosts. Parnell shows glimpses into the lives of much-loved writers such as M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, as he traverses the lands they grew up in and which likely (or more blatantly) inspired their works. Alongside this he delves into the stories themselves, taking us to the moment he first discovered them and emoting the impact they had on him. It’s a fascinating insight for those with a love of the genre; anyone with a penchant for classic Hammer Horror, Ghost Stories for Christmas, or folk horror will find much to love here. Parnell also includes the reader in his love for birdwatching, introducing different species and the ways in which he first encountered them, sometimes to a chilling effect. His descriptions of the random acts of cruelty witnessed within nature are almost cinematically conveyed, instilling a pit of dread within the reader to remind us of the journeys inevitable end.
The aspect of this book that perhaps resonates the most is Parnell’s gradual revelation of his own grief and trauma. Without giving anything away (it’s best to go into this not knowing anything for the strongest emotional impact), the scenes and atmosphere he describes from his favourite childhood films and stories often mirror the authors own inner despair. The beautifully vivid accounts of Parnell’s memories have the reader walking right beside him, witnessing these events unfold as he does.
Overall, the book is a slow-burner, and I would say it’s not for those with only an interest in the biography aspect. Throughout most of the text Parnell goes into great detail about those beloved classic horrors and the relevant areas of Britain, with flashes of his own experiences mingled within. The latter half of the book is when we get the true impact of the authors mission and what those disturbing images really represent for him. It’s beautifully written, vivid, emotive, and for a firmly established lover of the weird and supernatural, as well as the mysteries of the British landscape, an enthralling read.
November 13, 2021
A lot of this was lost on me, or at least very unfamiliar to me, from not knowing much about British ghost stories and writers, but it ended up being so lovely anyway.
It's not really like anything I've ever read, it's a strange mix of recalling classic ghost stories and novels while revisiting his family's life and travels in those areas, birdwatching, and memoir around illnesses in his immediate family. Somehow he manages to weave all of these together seamlessly too. Actually it was quite interesting to see the common themes he used to connect topics too.
It's also gorgeously illustrated, often with his own photographs, sometimes with historical drawings, and I think drawings created specifically for this as well, as they appear similar to the cover art.
It's really quite the experience, I marked up a lot of lines, and I probably should have been less lazy about looking up Britishisms that I didn't know here and there, but I'd happily read this one again. There's a lot going on and hard to absorb it all in one pass.
A gorgeously haunting meditation on memory, loss, and grief set against the stories we've been telling ourselves to make sense of those things for ages.
It's not really like anything I've ever read, it's a strange mix of recalling classic ghost stories and novels while revisiting his family's life and travels in those areas, birdwatching, and memoir around illnesses in his immediate family. Somehow he manages to weave all of these together seamlessly too. Actually it was quite interesting to see the common themes he used to connect topics too.
It's also gorgeously illustrated, often with his own photographs, sometimes with historical drawings, and I think drawings created specifically for this as well, as they appear similar to the cover art.
It's really quite the experience, I marked up a lot of lines, and I probably should have been less lazy about looking up Britishisms that I didn't know here and there, but I'd happily read this one again. There's a lot going on and hard to absorb it all in one pass.
A gorgeously haunting meditation on memory, loss, and grief set against the stories we've been telling ourselves to make sense of those things for ages.
January 12, 2020
Tormented by the nightmare of a family tragedy, Edward Parnell retreats into the ghost stories that entertained him as a boy. Embarking on a search for the authors, places and images from those stories, he travels across Britain, exploring the tales of a host of writers, including MR James, Algernon Blackwood, Lucy Boston and Graham Swift.
This is a fascinating and beautifully written book about a man exploring loss, memory, life and death, encountering tales of folklore, horror and fantasy and how and why they came to be written. Though it may not appeal quite so much to non-British readers, this book is nevertheless a captivating and thoroughly absorbing read that not only highlighted many of my own favourite authors but introduced me to several others.
A thoughtful, touching and enchanting book.
This is a fascinating and beautifully written book about a man exploring loss, memory, life and death, encountering tales of folklore, horror and fantasy and how and why they came to be written. Though it may not appeal quite so much to non-British readers, this book is nevertheless a captivating and thoroughly absorbing read that not only highlighted many of my own favourite authors but introduced me to several others.
A thoughtful, touching and enchanting book.
January 23, 2020
An excellent book, an excellent idea.
There is something subtly wrong with this as a total work though. Even Parnell himself approaches the heart of it towards the end, when he points out Stephen King's observation (in his excellent 'Danse Macabre' survey) that, basically, ghost stories are for the living. There are ghosts. And then there are... ghosts. Fiction isn't real. Don't forget.
This psycho-geographical round-up of UK supernatural authors, places and stories is paralleled with the story of the author's own personal tragedy and loss. And, while this is certainly a good conceptual fit, it sits oddly in the end. Perhaps it's just unnerving, like a good weird story should be. But it doesn't feel like that. It just feels sad - as though an interest in weird supernatural fiction (on the part of the reader) was an excuse to pry.
Perhaps it's just me.
There is something subtly wrong with this as a total work though. Even Parnell himself approaches the heart of it towards the end, when he points out Stephen King's observation (in his excellent 'Danse Macabre' survey) that, basically, ghost stories are for the living. There are ghosts. And then there are... ghosts. Fiction isn't real. Don't forget.
This psycho-geographical round-up of UK supernatural authors, places and stories is paralleled with the story of the author's own personal tragedy and loss. And, while this is certainly a good conceptual fit, it sits oddly in the end. Perhaps it's just unnerving, like a good weird story should be. But it doesn't feel like that. It just feels sad - as though an interest in weird supernatural fiction (on the part of the reader) was an excuse to pry.
Perhaps it's just me.
November 2, 2022
The author takes us through a haunted landscape of the British Isles, lonely moors, moss-covered cemeteries. The exploration of our folkloric woodlands and how these landscapes shaped our literature and cinema, from the ghost stories to weird fiction. It is an excellent and moving read, much more than a 'ghost book' or travelogue. It's about the place, belonging and loss and humanity in general. It is a wonderful piece of writing that is both haunting and moving in equal measure. I enjoyed the references to authors and films Iike MR James and 'The Wickerman,’ and other writers of ghost stories.
A great book for fans of ghost stories, haunted landscapes, ghosts in film, as well as photography, Highly recommended.
A great book for fans of ghost stories, haunted landscapes, ghosts in film, as well as photography, Highly recommended.
April 18, 2024
A very well written book which explores Edward Parnell's journey of long years of grief and acceptance through the discussion of books, authors, place and atmosphere.
I really enjoyed this one. It was the kind of book where I was constantly googling authors and books and places, a fully immersive experience. Not to give too much away but Parnell has had more than his fair share of bad news over the years and books have been his solace throughout.
Interesting, engaging, saddening, uplifting, this book is a real odyssey.
I really enjoyed this one. It was the kind of book where I was constantly googling authors and books and places, a fully immersive experience. Not to give too much away but Parnell has had more than his fair share of bad news over the years and books have been his solace throughout.
Interesting, engaging, saddening, uplifting, this book is a real odyssey.
March 27, 2020
I went into this thinking it would be about real hauntings/ghosts of the British Isles but it was more about literature and the author's memories. It's slow moving and, while not a bad read, I found it wasn't right for me in the current climate.
April 21, 2023
Part memoir, part travel writing, part film/literary criticism, part nature writing - this book is an amalgamation of these genres and there were definitely aspects of this book that I earnestly loved. Parnell documents his experiences of loss with a vulnerability and frankness that I found extremely touching, especially listening to him narrate it in the audiobook. I was equally drawn in to the literary/film criticism sections, some of which read like miniature biographies on authors the likes of M.R James and W.G Sebald. However, I found my attention and engagement slipping whenever Parnell shifted into what read like travel and nature writing. The book is a lot of things at once and the parts I loved, I really loved, but there were also parts that didn’t interest me at all.
February 22, 2021
This book is the literary equivalent of a gateway drug. I spent most of my time reading this searching out the other books and films referenced in its pages, as Mr Parnell has achingly good taste in horror stories.
Ghostland is a strange and beautifully almost dreamlike book. It blends seamlessly from hauntingly wonderful descriptions of desolate and time forgotten locations throughout the UK, into reviews/references to ghostly stories and badly shot 70's straight to TV horror films.
This is all my aesthetic in a huge way, part gorgeously outdated travelogue and part waxing lyrical about some of my favorite spooky writers, this book hit me with all the right feelings. It made me want to visit Norfolk and explore Norman church's and walk through eerie woodlands.
The overall feeling throughout the book was of creepy, folky terror and old ancient places where people still sacrifice babies to old gods and dance around May Poles, Wicker Man stylee. And this is the kind of England I would like to live in, I would be right there carving up the sacrifices, antler horns on my head, covered in blood.
But I digress, back to the review.
The only reason this book is not getting a 5star is the whole family aspect. I know this book is the authors way of dealing with the loss of, well everyone, but I don't like families or hearing about other peoples families. Yes I am heartless, yes I am dead inside, but that's just me. I would have rather had more wanderings around MR James country.
Delicately, subtlety, quietly creepy and gorgeous.
Ghostland is a strange and beautifully almost dreamlike book. It blends seamlessly from hauntingly wonderful descriptions of desolate and time forgotten locations throughout the UK, into reviews/references to ghostly stories and badly shot 70's straight to TV horror films.
This is all my aesthetic in a huge way, part gorgeously outdated travelogue and part waxing lyrical about some of my favorite spooky writers, this book hit me with all the right feelings. It made me want to visit Norfolk and explore Norman church's and walk through eerie woodlands.
The overall feeling throughout the book was of creepy, folky terror and old ancient places where people still sacrifice babies to old gods and dance around May Poles, Wicker Man stylee. And this is the kind of England I would like to live in, I would be right there carving up the sacrifices, antler horns on my head, covered in blood.
But I digress, back to the review.
The only reason this book is not getting a 5star is the whole family aspect. I know this book is the authors way of dealing with the loss of, well everyone, but I don't like families or hearing about other peoples families. Yes I am heartless, yes I am dead inside, but that's just me. I would have rather had more wanderings around MR James country.
Delicately, subtlety, quietly creepy and gorgeous.
August 3, 2023
I don't know how to exactly put into words how I feel about this work, but i will say this. For a travelogue/ horror fiction history/ grief journal it is probably the best I've ever read. It had me digging through my bookshelves for older British authors that I may have read in my teens. It transported me to distant locales with wildlife and terrain described in wonderfully poetic detail. And it had me crying in bed well into the evening. Each page is dripping with passion for the subject matter and is the loveliest letter to a fallen and much loved family. Much respect to the author for baring himself in such a way. Cheers.
November 27, 2019
"It's not the house that is haunted. It's me.
And I want to be; I have to be. Because if I give them up - if I stop looking back - everything that ever happened to us will cease to exist."
This resonated deeply with me. If you happen across this Mr. Parnell please accept my most sincere condolences.
And I want to be; I have to be. Because if I give them up - if I stop looking back - everything that ever happened to us will cease to exist."
This resonated deeply with me. If you happen across this Mr. Parnell please accept my most sincere condolences.
May 10, 2021
Touches on so many pieces of folk horror and British supernaturalism that mean a lot to me (The Great God Pan, Penda's Fen, The Wicker Man, Buried Giant etc) and so many more that I need to get into. A great melding of nature writing, biography and geographical ghost stories. But what I didn't expect was for the book to be so heartbreakingly sad and mournful, I won't spoil why though.
November 30, 2020
This is a great idea for a memoir and its depth of knowledge about the English ghost story -- both literary and filmic -- make it a treasure trove. It's reviewed along with one other 'ghost' memoir on the following link:
https://paulbutlernovelist.wordpress....
https://paulbutlernovelist.wordpress....
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