Y’all. I read Aunt B‘s book. I loved it. Like, really, really loved it. I couldn’t read it in one sitting, however. Because it kept creeping me the fuck out. I figure that is the hallmark of a successful book of ghost stories.
I can’t remember the last time I read something that was both very beautifully (and funnily, at times) written that was also quite unsettling and made me see things in shadows and hear noises that may or may not have actually been made. The icing on the cake is that the author is someone I very much respect and admire and am proud to know, and that she’s writing about a place that I actually know and have dwelled in off and on for years now.
So please go have a look at the review/interview I put up on The Shelf Life, when you get a chance. And, if you are at all inclined toward the supernatural or the ghostly or the historical or the local or, shit, just the proliferation of good art in this world, please buy the book. It will scare you and make you smile and, hopefully, give you a whole new way to look at your city, wherever you live.
I loved the book too, Theo. Funny thing is, I normally don’t care much for ghost stories. But B. gets to the heart of what they are all about, or should be all about, which is something I have a hard time describing. I guess I’ll call it the intersection between living human experience and those ethereal regions that we can’t define. That was clumsy, I know, but I hope you get the point.