Review of American Ghost

It’s day two of the #WeekofReveiws #Reviewathon challenge hosted by Andi at Estella’s Revenge . I was a bit confused at the dates because I’m not paying as much attention to dates as I should! Thanks, Andi, for this challenge. Yesterday, I posted a review of  Graveminder by Melissa Marr.

American Ghost: A Family’s Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest by Hannah Nordhaus.

• Pub. Date: 2015
• Publisher: Harper
• Format:Kindle eBook
• memoir
• page number: 341
• Source: I bought it at Amazon.
• 4 stars

What if one day, while watching tv, a picture of your grandparent’s home came on the screen.  And it’s on a ghosting hunting, paranormal phenomena show? And they claim the house is haunted by your great-great-grandmother? What would be your reaction? Well, this is similar to a situation to author Hannah Nordhaus is faced with a similar situation. Since the ’70’s stories about her Great-great-grandmother, Julia Staab haunting the former family mansion in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Stories of murder, depression, evil babies, and locked doors. A women in black wafting down hallways and through walls. Gothic horror stories come to life. Family stories that do nothing to really disprove the tales being told about Julia. So Hannah decides to find out how much of the ghost story is true. She uses her skills as a nonfiction writer to discover more about her family’s infamous ghost. To do this she consults ghost hunters and paranormal investigators, psychics and clairvoyants, gemologists and town historians. She also travels to Julia’s hometown in Germany and spends the night in Julia’s bedroom in her family’s former mansion. It’s a fascinating look at how the ghost stories tell us more about our history than we think.

I was expecting this book to be more like the super popular ghost hunting stories that populate the airwaves, but am surprised and happy it is not. It is an absorbing tale about family history that is also American history. I knew very little about Jewish history in the American Southwest and learned so much while reading this. And she tries to give Julia a voice. It truly is a fascinating read if you enjoy ghost stories and history.