Trick or Treat? A blogful of literary goodies to celebrate the season

Happy Halloween and time for one last wave of the pointy witch’s hat (between Trick-or-Treaters) to all those seasonal favorites—hauntings and spirits and witches, oh my! One of my favorite books with a splendidly mist-shrouded All Hallow’s feel is John Harwood’s wonderfully gothic exploration of the traditional ghost story in The Ghost Writer. The Ghost Writer is a gorgeous puzzle box of intertwining tales, all connected by an overarching mystery in which timid librarian Gerard seeks answers to his inscrutable pen pal's strange past and his own family's somewhat shady history through a series of odd Victorian manuscripts—ghost stories, of course. The manuscripts, each one a perfectly formulated exercise in gothic style, provide clues to the mysteries in Gerard’s life, but will they help him in time to save him from his family’s ghosts? Read it and see.

For a complete change of pace, check out my absolute favorite book about witches, Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman, by Sylvia Townsend Warner. A full eighty years before Harry Potter, poet Warner penned this rather charming country novel about timid Edwardian spinster, Laura (a.k.a. Lolly) Willowes, who shakes off the conventions of her day to become a witch. Harry Potter fans beware—there really isn’t much magic practiced in this one. Published in 1926, the pace is leisurely, the writing precise and poetic, but—witchcraft aside—the real thrust of the novel is its highly unconventional celebration of freedom from social constraints that, in those days, often relegated women of Lolly’s station to unpaid household laborers. Fans of Barbara Pym's writing might also enjoy this salute—with a little spin of its own—to the excellent women of a bygone era.

Straight from the Witch's Cauldron: Victorian Ghost Soup

Mist mantled mornings. Check. Skittering leaves that flutter and carpet our rain-damp paths. Check. Bare bones of trees (check) that rattle against the silent backdrop of an eerie harvest moon. Check. Freak windstorms, hailstorms, and lightening strikes that rattle the library windows. Check, check, and check. You guessed it, it must be Halloween, and what better time than a fog-shrouded fall evening with the rain tapping a ghostly coda on the darkened pane—what better to time, I say, than to cuddle up on the sofa with a cup of cocoa, a pair of cats (black of course), and a good book.

Since the season demands, I find myself wondering why it is that the words Victorian and ghost story seem to belong together like macaroni belongs with cheese. Maybe we just have Henry James and The Turn of the Screw to thank for this, or maybe repression and catharsis are another natural pairing that naturally manifests as a spectral blue emanation in the back parlor amongst the roll top desks and hand-painted fans. Whatever the case, we can thank Egyptologist author Arthur Phillips for another shall-we-say interesting and worthy entry in the Victorian Ghost genre with his recent novel Angelica.

Set in 1880s London, Angelica details a family’s downward spiral as a mysterious nocturnal spirit begins to haunt their lives, shattering their peace, disrupting their marriage, and possibly even threatening their child’s life. But is the specter real or is it imagined? Told from the point of view of four disparate family members, the story unfolds as a strange tale of denials, half-truths, buried secrets, and hidden motives, strongly in the vein of a Victorian-style Rashomon. In that respect, readers of the author’s other novels (Prague, The Egyptologist) will recognize Phillips’ trademark ambivalence toward his characters, whose self-deceptions form a unique pathos that is hard to resist. Psychologically complex and rich in atmospheric detail, Angelica is a delectible potage of themes and motifs, part psychoanalysis, part Victorian ghost story, part childhood memory—and entirely impossible to put down. So bring on the fuzzy slippers and the mini-marshmallows, Angelica is a perfect Fall read.