GHOST IN LOVE
Somewhere in everyone’s inner city is a cemetery of old loves. For the lucky contented few who like where they are in their lives and who they’re with, it is mostly a forgotten place. The tombstones there are faded and overturned, the grass uncut; brambles and wildflowers grow everywhere.
For other people, their place is as stately and ordered as a military graveyard. Its many flowers are well watered and tended, the white gravel walks have been carefully raked. All signs indicate that this spot is visited often.
For most of us, though, our cemetery is a hodgepodge. Some sections are neglected or completely ignored. Who cares about these stones or the loves buried beneath them? Even their names are hard to remember. But other gravestones there are important, whether we like to admit it or not. We visit them often - sometimes too often, truth be told. And one can never tell how we’ll feel when these visits are over: sometimes lighter, sometimes heavier. It is entirely unpredictable how we’ll feel going back home to today.
Jonathan Carroll: A Ghost in Love
I read “A Ghost in Love” recently and I loved the above passage as it so accurately describes loves and old loves. “Ghost in Love” is about angels, refrigerators, talking dogs, flying pens, relationship problems, bums, elementary school teachers, pizza, regret, sea creatures, second chances, good-luck charms, basement apartments, and delicious omelets. I like the character of Pilot the Talking Dog the best.
GIL is a worthwhile read I’ve read but of all the Carroll novels I’ve read “The Wooden Sea” is still the best.