Joined in 2023 
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It seems very odd that a woman who spent her first forty years claiming to speak to spirits, should die thirty years later without so much as a prayer. That being said, it’s worth remembering that the history of spiritual mediumship is peppered with examples of psychics admitting to their fraud, only to explain later on that they had employed trickery simply to embellish their genuine abilities, so as to meet the incessant demand for circles and emanations.
However, d’Albe’s investigation did not go as his executor’s intended, and Kathleen and her family were – according to his report – caught using trickery to create their various phenomena. Crawford’s story is virtually unknown, yet any novelist would struggle to find a tale more steeped in gothic tragedy. There were definitely moments along the way that I wondered where things were going and whether I would like that direction but I was equally intrigued by what William was experiencing and wanted to figure it out. I wish the author had just left it at William essentially having a split personality when he was awake vs when he was asleep as that would have been a really great twist by itself.Kathleen’s family are absolutely clear that she was in no way a seeker of the spotlight later in life; her public performances having switched from communion with the dead to ballroom dancing with her husband at company functions.
I had significant doubts about the middle section of this novel - and found myself struggling to get through it, or even understand what exactly was being described or if I was reading it right (plasmic cantilevers! Indeed, the world’s first spiritual mediums, the Fox Sisters who lived in an ultra-religious community in equally devout Hydesville USA, were effectively managed in the first half of the 1800s by their elder sister, Leah, who quite literally railroaded them across the United States as a very profitable curiosity. William Jackson Crawford is a respected engineer, living with his beloved wife and children in Edwardian Belfast.But when the book concerned manages to include Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Titanic, the Great War, an emerging Irish nation, two real life protagonists and is set in Edwardian Belfast, it became a somewhat irresistible invitation. Dark, powerful and twisting - The Spirit Engineer will leave you wondering what is real and what is illusion. I was given the strong impression by my mother that Kate’s history held some kind of sadness and regret for her, and it was painful to bring it up.
That is, until one day his wife is seen taking part to try and recover what she has lost and William may finally start to believe that maybe the veil between the living and the dead is more tangible if only he can figure out just how it all works so that he may lay claim to being The Spirit Engineer. Could the spirits truly be communicating with him or is this one of Kathleen’s parlour tricks gone too far? When he follows his wife one night suspecting her of an affair, he is transported into a world of voices and shadows, is it real or is it all just one big con?Was he a charlatan himself, trying to make a quick dollar, or a gullible dupe who wanted desperately to connect with his own ghosts? Narratora nie da się lubić (typowy „człowiek epoki” 🙄), ale w dziwny sposób działa to na korzyść książki, zwłaszcza po rozwiązaniu (za które naciągam ocenę do 4 <3). I liked the idea of having an engineer coming to terms with the existence of an afterlife and being haunted by people who died both in his past and his present.
This gave me the ability to read the book in what I would say is it's best light, an utterly fantastic, gripping, mind spinning, spooktacular piece of fiction.I previously sold pieces that were mostly vibrant colourful abstracts and semi-abstract floral themed pieces, these sold well as large scale pieces but less so as small scale pieces.
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