Other Worlds (Windsor Selections) - Hardcover

Barbara Michaels

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754012867 ISBN 13: 9780754012863

Publisher: Chivers Press, 1999

Synopsis

The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe old-fashioned ghost story has never fallen out of Charles Dickens is still best remembered for A Christmas Carol , and Peter Straub, despite his many fine novels, found in the ghost story his most potent tale ( Ghost Story , of course!). When Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House and Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw , did they know they were creating their most-remembered works in the horror genre? Barbara Michaels has written everything from outright horror ( Ammie , Come Home ) to horror cozies ( The Crying Child ), but her new one has more in common with Peter Straub's Ghost Story (without the violence) than with anything she's written before. As several men gather in a special club to discuss unexplained mysteries of the past, an aura of chilly darkness surrounds them. The men are famous and the time is the past. In a London Club, Houdini, Conan Doyle, and other psychic investigators and debunkers gather to tell ghost stories. Their purpose is to tell the tale, and then each will pick it apart to try to find an explanation for the phenomenon in question. The first story is one of the most famous historical hauntings in U.S. the Bell Witch in Tennessee. The second is a moderately well-known haunting in Stratford, Connecticut, called, appropriately, the Stratford Haunting. Each tale is told, and then the guests gathered around the club describe their understanding of whether the hauntings are either fake or very real. But an eerie edge begins to creep like fog into each tale,andalthough there is no Grand Guignol to Michaels's novel, there is a decidedly eerie — and yes, old-fashioned — feeling of dread. Imagine a séance with some of the best storytellers gathered around the table, or a fire at a campsite, or even the distinguished London club where these men congregate. Michaels captures this mood better than most, and she has a way of telling a tale that is never violent but features a mounting fear of the unknown that persists and becomes captivating. Those unfamiliar with the Bell Witch and the Stratford haunting will enjoy hearing these stories as well as the various solutions proposed by the august assembly. In the second section of the novel, which deals with the Stratford haunting, a new guest joins the men's table to tell the tale, and in many ways Other Worlds becomes more thrilling as this one — a story of family madness and human experimentation from a previous century — begins. When you pick this novel up — which you should — think Hawthorne, think Melville's short stories, and you'll definitely see the mastery of what I'd term a horror cozy that Barbara Michaels has at her fingertips. This novel is not for anyone who loves outright violence in dark fiction, but for the millions of readers who love a good ghost story, superlatively told. Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror novels, including The Halloween Man and Bad Karma , written under his pseudonym, Andrew Harper. His recent Bram Stoker-nominated short story, "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes," can be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Volume 11 .—Barnesandnoble.com

About this title

Review

Barbara Michaels (who also writes as Mystery Grandmaster Elizabeth Peters) is known for cozy romantic suspense, but Other Worlds is indeed another world of fiction for her. Set "outside time and space, in the realm of the imagination," the book is an all-star team meeting among several of the most famous dabblers in the world of the occult. These include American magician Harry Houdini, Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, Nandor Fodor (former director of the International Institute for Psychical Research), Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research, and a few other guests over two nights. Michaels establishes the purpose of their gathering in a brief opening passage, an exchange between Doyle and Podmore: "During our evenings together we enjoy a busman's holiday, applying our combined expertise to the investigation of famous cases that have never been satisfactorily explained. Sometimes we agree on a solution; more often we agree to disagree." On the two evening meetings recorded in this volume, the group addresses two ghost tales. The first narrative is of the Bell Witch, a ghost that haunted the Bell family for several years in 19th-century Tennessee. The second details the 1850 invasion of the Phelps family of Stratford, Connecticut, by demonic forces. In both cases, the story is followed by the commentaries of the guests, as each of them tries to explain away or justify the occult elements.

The collection has merit as a diversion for fans of classic ghost tales, and it has much the flavor of Poe and Hawthorne's stories of the supernatural. But, ultimately, the two narratives do not hold up well in their frame. Since, from the start, Michaels declares that the meetings among Houdini et al. are to be regarded as imaginary, much of the suspense is lost; then, the format (a story followed by analysis and criticism) undermines the suspense further as the reader witnesses the plot being pulled apart and rewritten by her various narrators. Fans of Michaels's other work may be disappointed by the lack of romance here, too (though Betsy Bell's ill-fated first love is a centerpiece of the Bell Witch tale). Nonetheless, Michaels's experiment in ghost narratives is an interesting one, and it is a pleasure to watch her assume the voices of these famous male figures in their antiquated, smoke-filled, gentleman's club of dreams. --Patrick O'Kelley

About the Author

Elizabeth Peters (writing as Barbara Michaels) was born and brought up in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. Peters was named Grandmaster at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986, Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar® Awards in 1998, and given The Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice Domestic in 2003. She lives in an historic farmhouse in western Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chivers Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0754012867
• ISBN 13: 9780754012863
• Binding: Hardcover