Are there here and there sequestered places which some curious creatures still frequent, whom once upon a time anybody could see and speak to as they went about on their daily occasions, whereas now only at rare intervals in a series of years does one cross their paths and become aware of them?" Por qué han proliferado las leyendas sobre la Casa Winchester? ¿Sabían que la mayor parte de estas historias puede refutarse fácilmente? ¿Tendrá que ver con que a la heredera la sociedad le tenía resentimiento por gozar de tanta riqueza cuando EEUU atravesaba una crisis financiera? ¿Por qué en lugares donde existían puestos para el comercio de esclavos las únicas historias fantasmales que se cuentan son de blancos? ¿La ya tan gastada explicación de los encantamientos provocados por cemeterios de nativos americanos responde a la culpa por haber exterminado a los primeros habitantes de la nación? ¿Por qué estamos tan obsesionados con el "ruin porn"?

I loved the travelogues, especially to film locations and writers’ home towns, but not so much the family reminiscences and the birdwatching recollections, but I can see how Parnell is really trying to exorcise his own demons by writing in this way – does it work? Not for me. I believe there are two books here; one I’m interested in, the lives of my own heroes and childhood viewings, and the autobiographical accounts of family loss – I have enough of my own to deal with, without Parnell’s family history to weigh me down too. It's a cool concept. There were a lot of logic leaps and unclear story elements that brought this down for me though. The ending is also terrible. It's all built up for a final confrontation that I was quite enjoying when we flash to an epilogue. If this was a movie, I would have thought they ran out of money before they could film the ending. Major things happen between the ending and the epilogue and it's all left unexplained with just a setup for a sequel. That ending was ridiculously frustrating. Cutting through the hypocrisy of evangelism and conversion therapy's direct negative effect on youths, rather than offering yet another summer camp slasher, Damascus gives readers The Exorcist by way of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The author is very thorough, covering every possible location for hauntings, including houses, hotels, hospitals, notoriously haunted cites, prisons, tragedy markers, and Indian burial grounds, among many others.

See a Problem?

No encontré nada de eso. Este es un libro que no parte de considerar a los fantasmas como algo real, está escrito desde un punto de vista más bien escéptico. El autor nos presenta una serie de ensayos en donde está presente la historia, sí, pero se enfoca mucho más en el contexto social.

And a type of paranormal technology that could have been much easier to understand for the non-expert like myself. It's also gorgeously illustrated, often with his own photographs, sometimes with historical drawings, and I think drawings created specifically for this as well, as they appear similar to the cover art. EP: I feel a bit of a fraud answering questions about contemporary horror as so much of the material that I read and watch is from an earlier period. I’m not really a huge consumer of recent British horror, though that’s more down to the fact, I think, that I’m rather obsessed with the historical, as opposed to not liking the newer stuff.A lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories… absorbing…[and] intellectually intriguing.”— The New York Times Book Review Perhaps it is the very intimacy of this exercise which leads the author to adopt his unusual approach to memoir. Ghostland could easily have became a straightforward autobiography or one of those “true life books” for which there is always a hungry market. Instead, Parnell opts to keep his own history at arm’s length and to use as “interlocutor” with his memories the ghost stories, weird tales and horror movies which he loved so much as a boy and which are still his passion (Parnell himself his written a critically acclaimed ghost novel).

What happens to Ben, Lillian, and Dr. Wexler? Do they make it through the theme park unscathed? What causes the computer system to fail? What happens when the ghosts escape? No spoilers here as you will just have to read the book! As he makes his way around to explore the locations from the books, movies, television shows and short stories that he enjoyed so much as a boy and then later as a young man, he discusses these works and writes about the authors themselves, recalls childhood memories, and slowly reveals the story of his "phantom family -- a host of lives lived, then unlived" in an attempt to help him "reconcile the real and the half-remembered." This is how ghost stories are born, after all: not from a complete story so much as from bits and pieces that don't quite add up, a kaleidoscope of menace and unease that coalesce in unpredictable ways. JH: How has the British horror landscape changed, in your opinion, from the 1970s to now? What developments have you loved, or hated?Parnell also travels his ‘Ghostland’, visiting places, both of his childhood and of importance to the novels or films that have stayed with him over time. He really does cover the length and breadth of the country, searching for glimpses of the past, sometimes for his own reveries and sometimes, it seems, to really try to get inside the heads of the people involved in bringing ghoulish delight to his younger self. He takes a very negative view of the professional ghost hunters and the "reality" programs on television that are basically made to titillate the public. He feels that this and the once popular practice of seances and spiritualism which in most cases turned out to be scams have influenced a large audience of believers in the supernatural.And through searching the supposed reason that a place is haunted (a murder, child abuse, etc.) he seldom finds anything that supports it. But he doesn't totally discount the presence of ghosts and suggests that some individuals are more sensitive to the environment of a haunted place than others. I learned a lot of quirky, historical details about the United States. For example, did you know that Spiritualists were a huge part of the suffrage movement?: "Early suffrage meetings were heavily populated with mediums and trance speakers; in some places it was difficult to find suffragists who weren't also Spiritualists. Spiritualism had given many of these women practice and confidence in speaking to groups with authority; by allowing others (the dead) to speak through them, American women began to speak for themselves in greater numbers. Spiritualism was only one of many factors and social movements that drove women's suffrage, but it was a vital and important one." loc 961-978, ebook. What also may have been historically significant in understanding Sarah Winchester was that in 1893, the United States suffered an economic depression which was only eclipsed by the Great Depression in the 1930s. Unemployment rose from 4% to 14% and there were hundreds of bank and business failures. With the economic and social upheaval that economic depression brings, Sarah Winchester would have been a stark symbol to the people around her of the gigantic gulf separating the 'haves' and 'have nots' in society. And as a wealthy, reclusive widow with no real social or family ties, she would have easily become a target of whispered gossip and fantastic tales. I’m just starting to think about a narrative non-fiction project that will explore a sense of place and cultural works a little like I tried to do with Ghostland– though the main subject matter would be rather different. But its progress partially depends on if and when I’m able to travel again, as it would be good if it could have more of an international flavour.