Other Worlds, Barbara Michaels
Someone on Barnes and Noble called this a "horror cozy," which is a description I kind of love, especially in the context of Other Worlds. This book is a pair of novellas describing two rather famous American poltergeist cases, the (inaccurately named) Bell Witch and the Stratford haunting. The novellas are connected by a frame story, psychic researchers gathered in a London club to discuss these cases. These are some fairly famous people, by the way; Houdini (gratifyingly skeptical), Conan Doyle (gratifyingly unskeptical), a few others I'm not super familiar with, and someone implied to be the author herself? Maybe Agatha Christie, I'm not sure.
Anyway, the conceit of the book is that this club meets every so often to describe hauntings and other spiritual phenomena and to discuss the validity of these events. Michaels then describes the Bell Witch incident and the Stratford haunting in great and literary detail. And then the two parts differ. In the first, the Bell Witch incident, every person present gets to lay out their own analysis and interpretation of the event, which was easily my favorite part of the book. It said so much about each person in what they picked out, what they chose to see, what they chose to discount. Unfortunately, the second half of the book more or less stuck with the story and the person telling it (possibly our author grandstanding a bit) and didn't give us nearly as much discussion.
Basically this book is fine. I don't really remember having any strong feelings about it. I enjoyed it enough to finish it, obviously, but not enough to pick up much else.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/398991.html. Please comment over there if possible.
Anyway, the conceit of the book is that this club meets every so often to describe hauntings and other spiritual phenomena and to discuss the validity of these events. Michaels then describes the Bell Witch incident and the Stratford haunting in great and literary detail. And then the two parts differ. In the first, the Bell Witch incident, every person present gets to lay out their own analysis and interpretation of the event, which was easily my favorite part of the book. It said so much about each person in what they picked out, what they chose to see, what they chose to discount. Unfortunately, the second half of the book more or less stuck with the story and the person telling it (possibly our author grandstanding a bit) and didn't give us nearly as much discussion.
Basically this book is fine. I don't really remember having any strong feelings about it. I enjoyed it enough to finish it, obviously, but not enough to pick up much else.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/398991.html. Please comment over there if possible.