The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871134748 ISBN 13: 9780871134745

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, 1991

Synopsis

A collection of non-traditional ghost stories, mostly from the past decade, by such authors as Fay Weldon, Nadine Gordimer, and Paul Bowles

About this title

Review:

"It takes a certain amount of daring for a literary writer to employ a device as powerful and obvious as a ghost, and a great deal of talent and self-assurance to pull it off. The fact that these stories are so different from one another and that no two ghosts in them are alike is a testament to the power of the individual imagination to appropriate established myths without assuming the associated clichés." So writes Larry Dark in the introduction to this anthology of expertly crafted ghost stories by such luminaries as Donald Barthelme, Paul Bowles, A. S. Byatt, Robertson Davies, M. F. K. Fisher, John Gardner, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Patrick McGrath, R. K. Narayan, Tim O'Brien, V. S. Pritchett, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Fay Weldon.

From Publishers Weekly:

Relying little on conventions of the genre, these 28 subtly disturbing, enigmatic modern tales are distinguished by global settings, some memorable ghostly narrators and the depiction of various religious beliefs about the spirit world. In general, they derive their chilling effect from their authors' skillful use of nuance. Setting the collection's almost-rational tone, the first story, M.F.K. Fisher's "The Lost, Strayed, Stolen," follows an American in Britain as he visits an old friend and his wife--and the spirits who live with them. Among her closest living friends, the wraithly protagonist of Muriel Spark's "The Portobello Road" includes her murderer. The late Isaac Bashevis Singer delves into a young woman's confusion when her Jewish grandfather and Christian grandmother give her conflicting advice from the grave in "A Crown of Feathers." Stories by John Gardner, Donald Barthelme, Joyce Carol Oates, Steven Milhauser, Fay Weldon, Graham Greene and Nadine Gordimer, among others, are equally rewarding.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0871134748
• ISBN 13: 9780871134745
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 369
• Editor: Dark Larry