The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary is a quiet little book about a woman, Faye, who wakes up on top of her piano dressed only in her husband's dress shirt and a string of black pearls. Turns out that she died five years ago and her husband has remarried, but she still haunts the house where they once lived together happily.
A couple of notes here: One, this book is by a Canadian author and published by Doubleday Canada, which means it's sort of hard to find in the States. I heard about the book from Books Unbound, a podcast hosted by two Canadian women. I used my university library resources to get it and the copy I borrowed is from a public library in Kansas City, Missouri, which I think is amazing. Also, this book has deckled edges, which I hate more than the fire of a thousand burning suns. So just be aware if you also dislike how impossible it is to turn the pages of a book with deckled edges.
4/5 stars
Lines of note:
Someone has been in here and changed things. My overflowing magazine rack has vanished. Our battered burgundy leather Morris chairs are gone. In their stead, a pair of slipcovered wing chairs the colour of the smudge you leave behind when you erase something written in pencil. My dark-red velvet sofa has been replaced with a non-colour one, somewhere between stone and sand. Everything in the room has been made neutral. Neutralized. I feel like I'm in one of those crappy home-redecorating shows where the woman comes in at the end and all she can do is say "Oh my god" and cry. (page 10)
Right? I would be horrified if everything in the room was neutral. HORRIFIED.
How did I go through my life and make all these decisions without realizing they were decisions? (page 34)
Do you ever wonder about this yourself? Like, how did I get here? Teenage Me vowed to get out of small town life and guess where I ended up? How did these decisions get made?
"Life is an irresistible force. Like all you want to do is stand still and you keep on getting pulled forward. So I had to get up every day and shave my face and put on clothes and talk to people and pretend to be one of the living. And I guess after a while I forgot I was pretending. And then eventually I started just living again." (page 181)
I like this as a way to think about the way out of grief.
Hat mentions: None
It may not be a book for everyone but I think it might be a book for me! I'm putting this on the TBR.
ReplyDeleteYes! I hope you can find it!
DeleteI kind of want to read this book, because I always wonder what A might do without me... He'd be so, so lost and unconsolable and I'd rather he wasn't.
ReplyDeleteEh, I wouldn't worry too much. He'd get remarried quickly because that's what men do. (She side-eyes her FIL...)
DeleteSolid ego and reality check! 😂
DeleteI say this because while all widows I've known have remained widows for the rest of their lives, every widower I've ever known has remarried. I'm pretty cynical about this. Men need women, but women don't need men.
DeleteWell... I'm a widow who remarried. (And I really think A wouldn't and just mope around.)
DeleteOooohhh...interesting information. I shall have to reevaluate my cynicism!!
DeleteSounds good. There's a quote I love from Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller that I have to look up - about a man who loses his wife and many children to the plague and how he goes on because, well, you just do.
ReplyDeleteLife goes on is a saying for a reason, I guess. It seems like pain will never end. And then it does. *sigh* We're all fleeting beings on this earth.
DeleteIt sounds like an interesting book. Your thoughts about deckled edged paper made me laugh! I guess I don’t have strong feelings about deckled edges. I can’t think of a book I’ve read that had deckled edges, but now I’ll be on the lookout. No hat mentions. How disappointing!
ReplyDeleteOh, I assumed everyone had strong feelings about deckled edges. They're so hard to turn!
DeleteThis sounds interesting! And that last quote about grief is spot on. When my mom died, it was so devastating but I had two little kids to take care of (my daughter was a toddler at the time.) I just got out of bed every day and went through the motions because I had no choice, and then eventually- just like the quote says- I was living normally again. Time really does heal all wounds.
ReplyDeleteYES! You just go through the motions until one day you aren't. It's gradual, but there you are living like a normal person again.
DeleteI can't believe I didn't put a single hat in that book.
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll keep that in mind for your future books!
DeleteI love the author's comment, that's awesome. I think I need to find this book. Regarding men vs women and remarrying, my step mom lost her first husband when she was 20 I think (Vietnam), married again, divorced, married my dad, they were together for 25 years, then he died. She waited about 3 1/2 years before looking to meet someone again, met a really nice guy online (Tom) who moved in with her and they lived together until he died about a year later (cancer). She is now cautiously dating again, it's been about 10 months since he died. Having said all of that, Tom waited maybe 2 weeks after his wife died to go online looking for a new partner. So there are themes there that both reinforce and contradict your understanding of men and women after loss.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know any women over 60 who lost their husband (through death or divorce) who got remarried. Every man I know whose wife died was remarried within two years. I have feelings about this.
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