Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

Description

One of NPR’s Great Reads of 2016 “A lively assemblage and smart analysis of
dozens of haunting stories… absorbing…[and] intellectually intriguing.”—The
New York Times Book Review An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history,
Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most
infamously haunted places—and deep into the dark side of our history. Colin
Dickey is on the trail of America’s ghosts. Crammed into old houses and
hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger
continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination
piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and
“zombie homes,” Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United
States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous
haunted places. Some have established reputations as “the most haunted mansion
in America,” or “the most haunted prison”; others, like the haunted Indian
burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective
nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by
focusing on questions of the living—how do we, the living, deal with stories
about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been
deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true
facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those
facts are made—and why those changes are made—Dickey paints a version of
American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes
left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland
discovers the past we’re most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of
day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in
the dark. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking (October 4, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1101980192
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 94
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.25 x 9 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #1,028,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #572 in Sociology of Death (Books) #1,238 in Ghosts & Hauntings #1,574 in Supernaturalism (Books)
• #572 in Sociology of Death (Books)
• #1,238 in Ghosts & Hauntings