THE HAUNTING OF AMERICA: Ghost Stories From Our Past

by Jean Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 1973

Anderson has dug up quite an assortment of indigenous American spooks -- a few never more deeply buried than the Lincoln Room of the White House, Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae or the pages of Susy Smith's Prominent American Ghosts, but mostly authentic regional favorites like ""Ocean-Born Mary,"" ""Marie Laveau, Queen of the Voodoos"" and ""The Galloping Ghost of Laramie."" Reading all these sketches together one is reminded of how dull most ghosts really are, and the attempt at heightening the suspense with a self-consciously ""literary"" style (words like ""unbeknownst"" and ""confrere"" materialize here and there) and redundant rhetorical endings (""One day, maybe, he will return,"" ""It may be so,"" etc., etc.) only add to the letdown. Taken individually, some of these haunters are quite scary (particularly those who have decrepit Mississippi plantations or isolated sea captains' mansions to rattle around in). It's a safe bet that undiscriminating ghost hunters won't be deterred by the lackluster incarnations, and von Schmidt's spooky photomontages add a dash of class.

Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION