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    Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
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    Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
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    Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
    Audiobook10 hours

    Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

    Written by Colin Dickey

    Narrated by Jon Lindstrom

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places-and deep into the dark side of our history.

    Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. 

    With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living-how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made--and why those changes are made--Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved.

    Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9781524703653
    Unavailable
    Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
    Author

    Colin Dickey

    Writer, speaker, and professor Colin Dickey has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories from all over the country. He’s the author of several books, including Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places and The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. A regular contributor to The New Republic and Lapham’s Quarterly, he is also the co-editor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. He has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Southern California and is a professor of English at National University, in San Diego. His next book, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy, will be published in 2023 by Viking Press.

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    Reviews for Ghostland

    3.5/5

    165 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Not what I expected but still fascinating. Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places is more an analysis of what haunts us culturally, historically, and emotionally -- and who purported ghosts tend to be (usually a young lady with an unfortunate end) -- than just a collection of ghost stories. There's a lot of debunking of old myths as well, in that the background facts of a lot of ghost stories don't hold up. Incidentally, I was surprised that a house only 2.5 miles away was mentioned— had no idea that the current owner had sued the seller because a murder-suicide had not been disclosed in the sale.
    • 2/5
      I picked up Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey with the hope that it would be like the 13 Alabama Ghosts books I remember so fondly as a child (they still have the first in the series at the public library in my hometown). I don't fully believe in ghosts but I do fully enjoy reading ghost stories. Tales of haunted places in particular are fascinating because they're usually told with a kernel of truth at the center. However, Dickey seems to contradict himself at every turn in this book by retelling these ghost stories and then almost immediately debunking them. Further compacting the confusion, each chapter ends with a somewhat mystifying takeaway about why there seems to be so many 'ghosts' and 'haunted places' in the United States. (And this is despite the U.S. as we know it being a relatively young country.) He covers the gamut of places that could possibly be haunted. There's the typical cemeteries and old houses but there's also factories and even the rarer entire city haunting (Detroit for example). Overall, I didn't feel satisfied because I think I was hoping for less analysis and more storytelling. I suppose this might be of interest in terms of a tour guide for places to check out yourself but it wasn't my cup of tea. 4/10Of possible interest: Dickey is a member of the Order of the Good Death started by Caitlin Doughty which I'm sure you'll all remember from earlier blog posts. I have to say that I didn't find his writing nearly as compelling as hers. :-/
    • 5/5
      I love nothing more than a good ghost story. Colin Dickey's "Ghostland" explores famous, and less famous, haunts across America from the perspective of the living. What do these haunted places and ghost stories tell us about ourselves and about our society? How is our own unease regarding our history reflected in them?Particularly interesting was Dickey's de-construction of some of the tales behind the hauntings. I certainly look at Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House a whole lot differently now. It's fascinating how the tales have grown, or perhaps not grown, around the kernel of truth. The chapters on African-American ghosts, or lack of same, around southern plantations or slave market sites were especially interesting.Dickey's writing style made "Ghostland" a really enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      I'm very surprised to see that so few people are claiming GHOSTLAND in their library because this is an excellent nonfiction book (yes, NF) that examines regional history through the lens of hauntings and so-called ghosts. I believe it was one of the New York Times Notable Books for 2016 and also a high ranker of NPR. If you think this book is just a bunch of bunk, then I recommend reading it to find out for yourself. It is very well written, engaging, and filled with history of the regions it addresses, which are pretty much every corner of America.
    • 4/5
      Includes an interesting inspection of ghost stories and the histories surrounding them. Objectively covers histories all around america.
    • 4/5
      A very interesting read and ghosts and what they mean to the places they inhabit. Dickey has really done his research and I appreciate the fact the he discounted ghost stories that were made up for tourism. I belong to a group of paranormal investigators and knew I had to read this book. A lot of times ghost inhabit places and pieces of history we try to forget about. They make us remember things we may want to forget. It is also interesting to read how the living deal with inhabiting the same space as ghosts. I found this book so much more than just ghost stories.
    • 4/5
      Dickey explores places in America that are considered haunted, from abandoned asylums to spooky hotels. Along the way, he examines the role of ghost stories in culture and country.This book was right in my wheelhouse! I am fascinated by ghosts, and haunted places, and the stories that surround them. Dickey has clearly done his research, and it has made for a great read.I also really appreciated Dickey's analysis of what ghost stories have meant to places and people, and how they have served as an attempt to explain or justify historical events.I just wanted more! I would happily have kept reading more and more stories in this book. I would love it if Dickey wrote more books on this subject.I highly recommend this book! It's well-written and really fascinating.
    • 4/5
      Colin Dickey always comes up with fascinating topics for his books, and this is no exception. As he writes at the outset, Dickey is concerned with the following question: "how do we deal with stories about the dead and their ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed haunted?" Drawing on several years' worth of observations from around the country, from famous haunted places to locations you've probably never heard of, Dickey deftly searches for the nuggets of truth at the heart of the ghost stories we tell ... and also for why we tell those stories. Very much a worthwhile read.
    • 2/5
      This book does not know what it wants to be. Sociology? A debunker? A ripping yarn? Ends up none of the above. Boring.
    • 4/5
      Well, this collection of stories certainly delivers. The author takes the reader across the United States to historically haunted venues and tells of the often gruesome circumstances which made them so. The stories are well told and contain historical background which set the tone and times. What's lacking are photos, maps and illustrations which I would have liked to refer to as I read. Still, I really enjoyed the effort.
    • 3/5
      Pretty decent. Don't know exactly why it didn't really get me though. Oh well.
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsThis isn’t just a book of ghost stories. The author digs deeper into the history of these haunted places and the some of people who supposedly haunt them. Not only that, he looks at supernatural history, in general. For instance, in the mid-19th century, Spiritualism became popular; current day, we see the fascination via ghost hunters and reality tv. Also current day (though he doesn’t go into detail on this, as it is in the epilogue), he talks a bit about technology – smart homes/devices, and social media. Of course, there are plenty of ghost stories included, as well. Some of the places he looks at include homes, hotels (he stayed in one with a group of people where they all had infrared cameras), brothels, prisons, insane asylums, and more. I found this quite interesting. There was a section on haunted towns/cities, as well, and I particularly liked the part on New Orleans, because I’ve been there. I had heard of some of the other stories/places he talked about.
    • 4/5
      Wasn't at all what I was expecting, though I admit I only briefly skimmed the synopsis before borrowing it. Part of me repeatedly felt almost let down by how Dickey would present the bones of a ghost story, only to turn around and thoroughly debunk it. I was also a little taken aback by how deeply rooted racism and classism appear to be in tales of hauntings, though why I should be surprised I have no idea. I feel educated, though not in a way that makes me feel warm inside. That wasn't the point, though, I can now see.(Though I did enjoy the section about Stull Cemetery, if only because it featured in Supernatural. I wonder how many gawkers and troublemakers that story arc might have sent there to explore.)
    • 1/5
      I liked the history and how it went into the stories told about famous places and how they differ from reality but I had a few problems with this novel. The author went off on little tangents that made me frustrated because I just wanted him to get back to the story he was telling and often times they didn't feel very relevant. I appreciated him talking about Detroit's reputation towards the end but it felt out of place with the rest of the novel and even the story he tied to it felt more urban legendy or cryptidy than like a ghost story. The author seemed to be a major disbeliever and didn't seem to believe in ghosts or anything similar which made the cover seem misleading. He did bring up some really good points about common ghost story themes and the whitewashing many stories have. I also liked the psychology he talked about behind ghosts.
    • 4/5
      This book is a travelogue of haunted places in the United States, but it's not the anthology of creepy stories you may expect.  While the author is skeptical of ghosts and hauntings, this is also not a work of debunking.  Instead it's a deeper analysis of the stories as folklore that explain the hidden parts of the human psyche as well as how Americans deal with the past (or more commonly, how we hide from it).Stops on his tour include places known for traumatic events and exploitation, such as brothels, prisons, ayslums, and even hotels.  Dickey visits several cities that have made an industry of monetizing their traumatic history as ghost stories for tourists, including Salem, Savannah, and New Orleans.  These stories can sanitize past tragedies while clearing us of wrongdoing. Then there's the message of the ruin porn of Detroit where the message is that someone's hubris is definitely to blame, although that may also be a deferral.In short, one may open a book of ghost stories and find oneself reading a social justice critique of the United States instead.  And a good one at that.Favorite Passages:"... all of these stories, in one way or another, respond to history.  Ghost stories like this are a way for us to revel in the open wounds of the past while any question of responsibility for that past blurs, then fades away." - p. 48"If the Kirkbride asylums are haunted, they are haunted by the difference between how history is conceived and how it plays out." - p. 185"Surely ghosts will follow wherever there is bad record keeping.” - p. 200"Ghosts stories, for good or ill, are how cities make sense of themselves: how they narrate the tragedies of their past, weave cautionary tales for the future. " - p. 248
    • 4/5
      As a person who loves history and learning about our culture through a historical lens, finding a good book on America’s past is always an exciting thing for me. I’m also a huge fan of haunted places and scary stories, as I am a hardcore Fox Mulder in that I want to believe (even if the Scully side of me butts in and usually pulls me from the total brink of belief). So when I found out that there was a book that combined both of these topics, I was so excited I couldn’t wait for the library to get it, and bought it myself. “Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places” by Colin Dickey is truly a perfect read for the month of October, and for Horrorpalooza. Because these are ‘true’ ghost stories! Sort of. It’s more trying to find out why certain places get haunted reputations, outside of a place actually being haunted by a restless spirit. Going into this book I thought that it was going to be a bit more about the latter with American history serving as a back drop, but what I got was a deeper exploration of our country’s past and all of the baggage that comes with it.Dickey travelled from haunted place to haunted place in America, not only telling the reader about the story behind the place, but also telling an in depth exploration of the non haunted history of that place and the implications that surround it. While there were numerous stories in this book that I had at least heard of in passing (or in the cases of the Winchester Mystery House and the city of Savannah, Georgia, actually been to), the actual background of those places were almost always unfamiliar to me, either because I just never learned about it at all, or because I’d believed the ‘haunted’ history that time has elevated. This had two reactions from me as I read the book. The first reaction was from the history buff in me, which was "Yes, interesting, tell me more." But the second reaction was from the Fox Mulder in me, which was "YOU'RE SPOILING EVERYTHING!" At one point in this book, Dickey speaks on the fact that the belief in the supernatural vs the disbelief in it are always going to be at odds with one another, because you aren’t going to convince a skeptic that ghosts exist, just as you aren’t going to convince a believer that they don’t. As I read this book, even though I had this in mind, I found myself falling into that exact trap. When Dickey would explain the actual history behind a haunted place, such as the Winchester Mystery House, I would write off the things that didn’t fit with my thoughts as sometimes dismiss them completely. No, I don’t necessarily believe that Sarah Winchester was told by a medium that she had to move west and keep building a house to trick the spirits from cursing her. BUT, I ALSO don’t believe that she built this strange house for years and years and years at a huge financial expense just because she was experimenting with architecture. Does a tourist site like the Winchester Mystery House have a vested interest in hyping it’s haunted reputation at the expense of the actual history of Sarah Winchester? Of course it does. But I wholly believe that there was something else going on beyond an enthusiastic woman enthralled by her design creativity. It was times like these that I felt that this book was a little less than thrilling for me. Just because there wasn’t a record of a mental problem going on doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one.But Winchester Mystery House aside (and it’s good that Dickey didn’t go all in on Savannah outside of saying it’s a tourist city hoping to protect and promote it’s ‘brand’), I really enjoyed reading “Ghostland”, because Dickey did bring up a lot of good points about American history and culture, especially when it comes to how these places and hauntings reflect our value systems. I especially liked that he brought up the fact that so often, the ‘ghosts’ that haunt these places are very Western centric and white, except when it comes to mass tragedies that our country perpetuated and both feels guilty over while also ignoring them. Specifically, slavery and the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples. While there have been stories of Thomas Jefferson haunting Monticello, a ghost that the site can embrace, you very rarely hear about ghosts of slaves and those that Jefferson wronged wandering it’s halls. On the flip side of the coin, the idea of the “Ancient Indian Burial Ground” is a trope that has been used repeatedly in horror stories, but it serves as little more than a way to Other multiple distinct groups while assuaging our guilt that we don’t really like to think about. In our stories it’s a revenge that is understandable, and yet we are still predisposed to sympathize for those (usually non-Native) people being haunted rather than the reason the haunting is happening in the first place. I had never really thought about these things in depth before reading this book, and boy did it really make me think.Dickey also did a fair amount of research going into this book, with a fair amount of source notes that tie it all together. He did a good job of presenting a lot of information without it ever dragging or seeming dry, which is a true talent when dealing with the complexities of American history. He has a serious penchant for storytelling and kept things interesting while keeping them solidly anchored in historical context. And I do appreciate that Dickey postulates that even if they are overblown, hyped, and in some cases patently untrue, these ‘true’ hauntings do serve a larger purpose beyond just entertaining the masses. Sometimes they help us cope, or serve as warnings, or just help us understand what we’re seeing before us.While “Ghostland” may not have changed my mind about the possibility of ghosts (though that wasn’t the intention at the heart of it), I did really find it a fascinating read and completely perfect for this time of year. I can’t recommend this book to history buffs enough, especially those like me who love a good ghost story. So if you want to learn some potentially new ghost stories and get some context as to what functions they serve in modern society, pick it up!
    • 4/5
      With an objective eye on the nation's sordid past and the observant diligence of an anthropologist, Colin Dickey removes the veil from America's ghost stories. Sure, there are some creepy retellings of legends and the inexplicable eeriness in haunted places, but the focus in this deft and engaging work is on the living—those who continue to give life to people and circumstances long dead. Dickey intermingles the characters of ghost stories with the people who continue to tell them and the historical & physical context in which they reside. He unabashedly confronts the errors of these tales and dredges up long buried history that the very nature of the ghost stories attempts to keep covered. Reading this book was revelatory and surprising and I really enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      Colin Dickey has written a well researched book on the historical and sociological impact on the lore of ghost stories and into different types of haunted places, the myths which have grown around the realities of said myths. There is a lot to consider reading these stories and a lot of the rumors of hauntings are shown to be a concoction of the human mind. Fascinating.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I quite enjoyed this book, but I also felt that it could have gone a lot deeper into several of its topics. In fact, I think there are several potential books here, each of which could have been interesting on its own. Some examples include how economics affect housing occupation and remodeling; how specific historial incidents warp and smooth into folkloric cliches; the role of ghost stories in creating and maintaining an “official” history of a particular place (often glossing over or eliding the factual history); the history of “ghost hunters”—who they are and why they do what they do._Ghostland_ tells some of all of these stories, but at a fairly shallow level, often with just enough depth to intrigue the reader—it’s more of a personal tour than a rigorous academic work. And as such, while there are citations for various facts, there’s not enough to make it easy for someone unfamiliar with the topics to pick up the more detailed works that others have written on these topics.It’s still a fun read, and there were interesting facts and stories Imhadn’t previously encountered, some of which chimed with other things I’ve happened across or experienced in interesting ways.
    • 4/5
      Readers hoping for a collection of ghost stories related to American history may well be disappointed with this, but I enjoyed it very much. Dickey doesn't actually tell many ghost stories, and certainly never with the level of detail that make them fun. What he's interested in is the why of ghosts. Why certain places and circumstances inspire ghost stories, what ghosts and their stories give us that we need.This reminded me some of W. Scott Poole's Monsters in America, which explores historical/social developments as possible backgrounds for supernatural beliefs, except that Dickey focuses only on ghosts. His style is somewhat breezier, also, but both authors see communal guilt or discomfort with actions taken against overpowered minorities, generally native Americans and African-Americans, as an underlying “itch” which inspires many American stories of victims who refuse to permanently disappear after their deaths. Stories of murdered slaves and vengeful native American spirits reflect anxieties with histories which don't fit our preferred narratives. Also, though, Dickey regularly points out the profit motives, both financial and otherwise, which may motivate ghost stories. As well as selling tickets for ghost tour guides, ghost stories can offer cautionary tales for potentially wayward children (“don't hitchhike!”), satisfactory resolutions in cases where the wicked are indicted by their victims from beyond the grave, entertaining explanations of why particular buildings or other settings which should be mundane feel, instead, oddly unsettling. Ghost stories can accrue to many types of locations, and, section by section, Dickey explores ghosts connected with homes, hotels, brothels, asylums, cemeteries, cities, etc. Since his interest is not so much in particular stories as in the reasons that ghosts may “arise,” he tends to jump around quite a bit, bringing in stories as they support or illustrate his points. While not a “debunker,” Dickey does tend to expose most of the stories he conveys as, at least to a large extent, fictions. His interest, again, is not in the reality of the ghosts, but in why their stories are compelling enough to be told and retold. Stories which are verifiably false, though, do, particularly, invite the question of what it is that keeps them circulating. For example, he tells the story of the ghost of George D. Mason, who supposedly haunts Detroit's Masonic Temple, from the roof of which he jumped to his death due to financial woes. Dickey says,”A popular story, yes, but among the most patently false and easily disproved ghost stories out there. Mason was eighty-eight at the time of his death, from natural causes (as any quick Google search will tell you), which took place more than twenty years after the Masonic Temple was finished. And yet the story has cachet in part because it reflects a narrative tha many have about Detroit: one of ostentatious overreach, folly, and death from financial ruin. So even though it's obviously false, it still gets told and retold.”Dickey really summarizes his book nicely right up front in his “Author's Note,” when he says,”Even if you don't believe in the paranormal, ghost stories and legends of haunted places are a vital, dynamic means of confronting the past and those who have gone before us. Ultimately, this book is about the relationship between place and story: how the two depend on each other and how they bring each other alive.”Dickey's exploration of why ghost stories are told, what they tell us about ourselves, why we enjoy them is entertaining reading.
    • 4/5
       This book was a birthday gift from my husband, who knows how much I love both old buildings and ghosts. I’m not sure I would have learned of it otherwise. We have toured many a historic home and taken ghost tours in many cities, because I love the combination of history with the mystical. So this book was right in my wheelhouse.Dickey is not so much concerned with telling us ghost stories as he is interested in telling us who, what, and where, and why of them. Who were these ghosts in their earthly form? Did they even exist? What happened to them? Where is this place that they haunt, and is that location significant? And why? Why would this spirit need to haunt this place? Why are we compelled to search for ghosts?“A paranormal event without a story is tenuous, fragile. What makes it ‘real’, at least in a sense, is the story, the tale that grounds the event.”The book explores some places you may be familiar with, like the Winchester Mystery House or the House of Seven Gables, as well as some places you may never have considered, like the part of Richmond, Virginia that used to be a slave market. But I think Dickey brings a fresh perspective even to the most well-worn stories. I’ve toured the Winchester Mystery House, and his words made me think about it differently. He also raises some interesting issues, particularly in the story of the slave market. Why are so many ghosts white, when there has been so much black suffering?The only thing I felt the book was missing was pictures. I read the Kindle version, so maybe they exist in the print version? They would have been an excellent addition, especially since I was familiar with some of the locations, and not with others. I particularly felt compelled to Google Timothy Brown’s house in Georgetown, New York.Overall I enjoyed the perspective Dickey provides. It definitely gave me something to think about on our next ghost tour!
    • 5/5
      America is a haunted country. Through the 300+ year history of European settlement on this continent, we have amassed an army of restless spirits. Certainly more than can be contained in a 300 page book. Fortunately, Dickey isn’t looking so much at the individual ghosts. Rather, he is looking at our ghostly archetypes, and what our national ghosts can tell us about our evolving history.Dickey takes us to haunted houses, businesses, cemeteries, prisons, asylums, and towns. We march over familiar ground such as The House of Seven Gables in Salem, and the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. But Dickey shines light in the hidden corners of our collective psyche. Perhaps the Winchester House isn’t a labyrinth to entrap vengeful spirits, but rather the overblown publicity paid to a fiercely independent woman who felt no desire to conform to society’s mores.Dickey brings this fresh approach to the Moundsville Penitentiary, and to the Mustang Ranch. To the antebellum ghosts of Richmond, Virginia (why, with a notorious slave market in town, are all the ghosts white?), and to the city of Detroit, where “ruin porn” has turned the city itself into a sort of ghost.Ghost stories are common, and the most famous legends have been repeated time and again. Dickey spins us away from the well-trod path, and into the darkened forest of our own history and collective psyche. And, as it turns out, that might be all we need for a scary story.Ghostland is currently available for purchase.