Ghostland by Edward Parnell. William Collins. 2019
This is not a travel guide to haunted England, but a travelogue of the country and of personal history. Edward Parnell who has loved ghost stories from an early age, traverses the country to sites connected with various authors of ghost stories, the stories themselves, and even BBC and cinematic adaptations. His travels often intersect with places that he'd lived, or visited on familiy excursions, and the memories associated with those trips often entangles with those of the ghost stories. Not all of the ghosts are literary. Parnell has suffered devastating loss, and this book is as much a love letter to those who left him as it is to the stories that inspired him.
This was a very engaging read. Even if, like myself, you've read countless ghost stories, this book will make you want to return to old favorites as well as seek out some you may have missed. I'm also really dying to see all those BBC adaptations, especially of the M.R. James stories. I've known about them for ages but have never seen any. The trick for me with
Ghostland is not knowing where to shelve it. I actually have a number of regional ghost tour books, but I'm not sure this belongs with them, or with my collections of ghost stories.
Again we're on the same wavelength; I just read GHOSTLAND about a month ago! I agree that it's an engrossing read and is unique in that it combines a look at horror films and stories plus autobiographical information about the author's life and losses plus a travelogue. If one shelves books by subject, I don't know WHERE this would go.
ReplyDeleteThose BBC GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS are absolutely wonderful and are available on dvd (if you have an all region player, that is). They're not to be missed!