The spectral map Dickey creates is as broad and packed as his book’s title implies ... interweaves a series of perceptive insights on architecture and human psychology, technology and ghost hunts, not to mention haunting as social control ... Ghostland amounts to a lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories ... Dickey achieves a capacious geographical synthesis that is both intellectually intriguing and politically instructive.
This spiritualization of corporeal feelings is the idea at the heart of Ghostland, a book that repeats this thesis over and over again, but does so in such creative and even ingenious ways that the reader pays no mind to that lingering echo in the basement ... Part of the special delight of Ghostland is its many informed asides, revealing Dickey’s long hours of spading up obscure facts and quotes.
...[a] sly, entertaining compendium of American haunting ... Each chapter is part tale, part analysis. The stories are good — chains rattle, eerie lights pass by — but often Dickey seems more fascinated than actually spooked ... Instead, what makes the book rich is the way that Dickey consistently narrates a pleasantly chilling tale — of a spurned love, of a series of mysterious deaths, of an unhappy soul left with unfinished work — then reads what lies behind the ghost story. It’s as if he’s lifting the veil to show how one horror stands in for another ... Dickey is a wise tour guide to the kitsch and also an astute interpreter of the compelling American medium of haunting.
As he wends his way through the landmarks and their histories, Dickey thoroughly and convincingly explores the many underpinnings of ghost stories and hauntings ... Dickey neatly dissects not just the historical, but the visual and atmospheric elements that evoke a haunting.
Dickey connects themes in each story to literature, philosophy, psychiatry, or sociology, making for a deceptive, albeit entertaining, way to eat your vegetables ... Dickey has a knack for breathing life into an urban legend and then letting the air out, making Ghostland satiating for skeptics ... One can’t also read Ghostland and not notice a west-coast bias ... but at its core Ghostland is as informative as it is entertaining, a rare balance of the supernatural and the academic. It’s a must-read this Halloween and worth revisiting many times after.
Putting his background as a scholar and cultural historian to good use, the author takes us on a thought-provoking exploration of our relationship with the supernatural ... This mix of history and mystery keeps the writing grounded, without it becoming too academic ... Ghostland is a swift, engaging read, but sometimes Mr. Dickey tries to pack in too much information. This results in the focus of some chapters being overshadowed by the supporting details.
Whether the ghosts in these stories are somehow, you know, real is sort of beside the point in writer Colin Dickey’s fascinating (but rarely spooky) new non-fiction book ... Dickey crosses the country to see them firsthand and describe them with clear eyes and artful prose.
