Monday, March 9, 2009

The Best Ghost Story I've Ever Read

One of the best, for sure. It's "The Affair at Grover Station" by Willa Cather, and you can read it here. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I found this story in The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, which is certainly worth seeking out. Another deliciously eerie story in the collection, Rosa Mulholland's "Not to be Taken at Bed-time" (find it here, PDF link at the bottom of the page), contains some very compelling descriptions of Connemara. The plot is loaded with witchcraft, love-charms made from corpse-flesh, and pacts with the devil, yet none of that is quite so haunting as the sea and landscape:
The sashes were open, and nothing was visible but water; the night Atlantic, with the full moon riding high above a bank of clouds, making silvery tracks outward towards the distance of infinite mystery dividing two worlds.

2 comments:

Herringbone said...

Ah, love-charms made from corpse-flesh, brings back the bitter sweet memories of my first kiss.

Unknown said...

Remind me about this when I'm done finals--I'd love to read it.