Ghostland : an American history in haunted places

Summary: Dickey, piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles 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.

Record details

ISBN: 1101980214
ISBN: 9781101980217
ISBN: 1101980192
ISBN: 9781101980194
Physical Description: xiii, 320 pages ; 24 cm
print
Publisher: New York, New York : Viking, [2016]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-308) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: Anatomy of a haunting (New York, NY) -- 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) -- A devilish place (Richmond, VA) -- Baby (Reno, NV) -- Passing through (Los Angeles, CA) -- 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) -- The wet grave (New Orleans, LA) -- Among the ruins (Detroit, MI) -- Hillsdale, USA -- Epilogue: Ghosts of a new machine (Allendale, CA).