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A review by drewsof
Guestbook: Ghost Stories by Leanne Shapton
5.0
5+ out of 5.
Surprisingly frightening, full of imagination-stoking fragments or tales that light up the darker corners of your mind for just long enough to wonder if you're really alone there. Some of the more traditional stories have their own strengths -- a tennis prodigy whose uncanny abilities are perhaps due to an imaginary friend who might not be so imaginary, a cellphone-video one-page ghost story -- but the real powerful stuff comes from Shapton's juxtaposition of photography and text, from the ways in which the reader must project their own story onto the negative space therein.
Or maybe I'm just the kind of reader who, when shown a grainy photograph of a room in an old house in a book subtitled 'ghost stories,' wants there to be a bump in that particular night, and will immediately consider all the ways there could be one.
Surprisingly frightening, full of imagination-stoking fragments or tales that light up the darker corners of your mind for just long enough to wonder if you're really alone there. Some of the more traditional stories have their own strengths -- a tennis prodigy whose uncanny abilities are perhaps due to an imaginary friend who might not be so imaginary, a cellphone-video one-page ghost story -- but the real powerful stuff comes from Shapton's juxtaposition of photography and text, from the ways in which the reader must project their own story onto the negative space therein.
Or maybe I'm just the kind of reader who, when shown a grainy photograph of a room in an old house in a book subtitled 'ghost stories,' wants there to be a bump in that particular night, and will immediately consider all the ways there could be one.