Tim Prasil

This book had been on my wish list for some time, and when it arrived, it landed on the top of my to-read-next stack. I'd already read and thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Prasil's Spectral Edition, an intriguing log of newspaper articles of hauntings in America on either side of the turn of the last century. His commentaries were thoughtful; his research, clearly a labor of love.
I'm not sure what I was expecting with Help for the Haunted...I believe I was thinking along the lines of a fictional occult detective duo. This is far, far pithier than Carnacki and his cronies, flat characters arranged for an after-dinner telling of wild ghost stories. Vera and Lida are plucky and thoughtful-- not paper dolls. What I wasn't expecting was a) they really existed! b) the humor, the twists of emotion as we gradually learn more about both ladies, the social commentary on sexism and racism at the time --well addressed with sensitivity without bludgeoning the reader or overshadowing the stories. I have flagged this as a favorite and am elated to see that this is subtitled, volume 1. I eagerly await volume 2! Charming, entertaining, thoughtful, original. Loved it! Long live Vera and Lida!… (mais)

First off, this is an amazing project. I give it five stars for the effort in hunting up these reports.

This is a lovely book to have for anyone interested in history and ghosts in America. I had hoped that there would be more stories that carried on into present day, places that continued to be haunted that we could look back at the news from pre-WWI and say "wow, that's amazing, she's still walking the halls after all these years" or some such. Unfortunately, this collection has few cases like this.
We are an attention-deficit culture now. We want short crisp sentences. I won't claim that this is a well-crafted sentence, but it popped out as an example of yesteryear's reporting and I love it: "The old college had about twenty rooms, the larger number of which are unoccupied, and Tygh, who is a short, fleshy man and much given to the subject of spooks, shuddered as we walked down the hall and muttered something about its being an elegant night for ghosts to play football." (p. 83 from a lengthy article in the Evening Star, Washington D.C. 1886)
While some of the stories are tragic and have a real feel to them, many must have been written for whimsy and entertainment. Ghosts purportedly haunting a Chicago neighborhood are reported in a Bismarck, North Dakota paper. The ghost in the jail in Casper Wyoming is documented in the Salt Lake Herald Utah paper and so on. Not exactly vetted.
If you have an interest in history, ghosts and whimsy, this is the ticket. This is a lovely collection of stories where the behavior of the haunts and the haunted has the campy feel of a Mantan Moreland ghost movie feel to it. In fact, I wish there were a way to make a noir-ish, mockumentary style movie of this collection.
… (mais)