The Ghost Notebooks: A Novel

by Ben Dolnick
Pantheon Books, New York, 2018
Ebook ISBN 9781101871102

The Ghost Notebooks by Ben Dolnick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I became so engrossed in this book last night that I read it until past midnight. When I woke up this morning, I finished it. I didn't even look at the newspaper.

I'm not interested in run-of-the-mill supernatural/horror/ghost stories. I've read plenty of them. But after reading the masters (Lovecraft, Machen, M.R. James, LeFanu and the like), I've become quite selective when it comes to this genre. I found this book very satisfying. It hit most or all of the right notes for my taste. The quality of the writing is comparable to what you'd expect in literary fiction, with well-developed main characters, interesting secondary players and insights into their inner lives. The quasi-supernatural aspect is nicely handled.


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A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

The characters in this novel are so unappealing that I nearly gave up on it a quarter of the way through. But then I read somewhere that it is a satire. Somehow that made it more interesting, and the story picked up speed, so I finished it. 

A quick overview of the plot, without spoilers: it's England in the 1930s. Lady Brenda has a title but no money. Her husband, Anthony, has no title but plenty of money, all of which is required to maintain their once-grand but now decaying stately home. Stranded in the countryside far from glittering London society, Lady Brenda is bored. She and her sister, Lady Marjorie, amuse themselves by cheating on their husbands. Lady Brenda takes up with idle young John Beaver, who has no title, no money, no job and no home of his own. Beaver lives with his mother, who makes her living selling overpriced interior decorating services to the aristocracy. Matters just get worse from there. 

At the conclusion of the novel, the reader gets an unexpected bonus: an alternate ending. You can take your pick. But both are pretty bleak, which comes as no surprise by the time you reach that point.  

The book includes several distasteful references to Jews and blacks. The most charitable interpretation is that Waugh is making a point about bigotry and racism, but given the context I doubt that's the case.  I think he's giving us a glimpse of his own prejudice. Setting that aside, I enjoyed A Handful of Dust. Think of it as a dark version of a P. G. Wodehouse story without the comic relief.  If you liked Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, you'll probably want to read this as well.