A review by otterno11
Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country by Edward Parnell

dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

 Edward Parnell, in his atmospheric exploration of the haunted landscapes of the United Kingdom, writes an introspective, meandering personal exploration of his life experience and particularly how artists use hauntings to wrestle with memory and place. Drawing in many threads and elements and tying them loosely if intriguingly together, using the classic literary English ghost stories from writers like M.R. James and William Hope Hodgson and traditions of folk horror in British cinema, Parnell illustrates how these themes reflect both their own personal histories and that of their society. He rambles across Britain, discussing the various lonely, haunted locations of England, Wales, and Scotland, delving into how this landscape influenced classic stories of ghostly phenomena and intertwining everything with stories of his own family, grief, and experiences. At times, Parnell’s tangents can be fascinating, but also can lose focus, making some chapters feel a little overlong. Still, the connections he made between these disparate threads of English life were captivating.

Along with Colin Dickey's own 2016 book Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, focusing on the US, I discuss books exploring memory, place, and ghosts at Harris' Tome Corner.