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Book

Ghostland : an American history in haunted places

Call Number

  • 133.1 D551 (OSH)

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Publication Information

New York, New York : Viking, [2016]

Physical Description

xiii, 320 pages ; 24 cm

Summary

Dickey, piqued by a house hunt in LA that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie houses," embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living--how do we deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes are made to those facts and why, Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone and crimes left unsolved.

Contents

  • The Unhomely: houses and mansions
  • The Secret Staircase (Salem, MA)
  • Shifting Ground (St. Francisville, LA)
  • The Endless House (San Jose, CA)
  • The Rathole Revelation (Georgetown, NY, and Bull Valley, IL)
  • The Family That Would Not Live (St. Louis, MO)
  • After Hours : bars, restaurants, hotels, and brothels
  • A Devilish Place (Richmond, VA)
  • Baby (Reno, NV)
  • Passing Through (Los Angeles, CA)
  • Civic-Minded Spirits: prisons and asylums, graveyards and cemeteries, a park
  • Melancholy Contemplation (Moundsville, WV)
  • The Stain (Danvers, MA, and Athens, OH)
  • Awaiting the Devil's Coming (Charleston, SC, and Douglas County, KS)
  • Our Illustrious Dead (Shiloh, TN)
  • The Wind Through Cathedral Park (Portland, OR)
  • Useless Memory: cities and towns
  • The Wet Grave (New Orleans, LA)
  • Among the Ruins (Detroit, MI)
  • Hillsdale, USA
  • Epilogue : Ghosts of a New Machine (Allendale, CA).

Subjects