Women and Ghosts
Tales
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The author of The War Between the Tates and the Pulitzer prize-winning Foreign Affairs now brings her irresistible wit to the ghost story.
In nine spooky tales, Alison Lurie writes of women haunted by ghosts both literal and metaphorical: A woman about to marry Mr. Right is visited by the spirit of his first wife; a dead fiancé haunts a foreign service officer every time she has an intimate moment with another man; the ghost of a girl in a Halloween costume disconcerts the perfect housewife. A secretary on a diet begins to see obese people everywhere she looks; a self-conscious poet is shadowed by her intrusive doppelganger; and a capricious, malevolent spirit seems to have inhabited an acquisitive matron’s prized piece of furniture.
Delightfully strange and beautifully told, these nine tales show Alison Lurie at her luminous best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From Pulitzer-winning novelist Lurie (Foreign Affairs) comes this first-and disappointing-short-story collection with a supernatural slant. Humorously spooky at best, and breaking no new ground, the nine stories here feature women who are disturbed during their daily routines by the appearance of Disney-like entities from another realm. A dead boyfriend returns to prevent his ex from dating other men; a wicked highboy doesn't want its drawers opened; a Wordsworth scholar turns into a sheep; a woman on a diet is plagued by obese ghosts who lure her into bakeries. Lurie's storytelling remains smooth throughout; what's missing is any sense of risk-taking or envelope-pushing. The endings are consistently dull and often gimmicky, and many of the stories are formulaic. An exception to the routine entries is ``The Pool People,'' whose premise about a rich woman's swimming pool haunted by workmen has a strong social tension ticking away behind it. Overall, though, this is wraithlike entertainment from an author who usually delivers far more substantive work. Paperback rights to Avon; author tour.
