Overview

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries seances and spiritualist meetings grew in popularity. One 'ghost' appeared more than any other: the Katie King spirit. A Ghost's Story presents the mysterious spirit writings and biographical outpourings of Katie King, this famous and enigmatic spirit celebrity. Is she a profound and curious consciousness guided into this realm by the faith of true believers, or the cheap trickery of parlour cheats and exploitative swindlers? Katie King is both, and more. This is the tale of a ghost's quest to understand human faith, loss and passion. It is also the tale of a contemporary scholar desperate to understand the allure of the spirit world, journeying with Katie from the candle-lit drawing rooms of Victorian London to the Imperial Palaces of Tsars; from the shadiest of gimmicks and tricks, to the most poignant sincerity of the death-bed wish. A Ghost's Story announces a narrator like no other, moving in and out of time and space, obstreperous, witty and profoundly honest. Above all, it is an examination of belief and a spectacular insight into what lies on the other side.

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9781783780365

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Reviews

'This multi-layered book is clever, delicious and full of memorable images. Long jet earrings hang like dark teardrops and Katie steals into a woman like a moth that had accidentally flown into a mouth and rested within, fluttering, delicate, vulnerable, only to be expelled seconds later. There are some wonderfully gothic descriptions of death - such as when a girl is struck down by a copperhead snake - and the book is at its best when Katie is at her nastiest (for instance, when orchestrating the death of a pastiche act). A Ghost's Story is playful, highly readable, and a paean to the mystery and unknowability of the creative imagination.' (The Independent) 'A fascinating story of what it might be like to be a ghost, and the longing in us that makes us want them to exist' ( Books of the Year, Glasgow Herald, chosen by Lesley McDowell) 'Lorna Gibb's compelling story of spiritualism and mediums is full of the most intriguing, bizarre detail as she reveals the insider secrets of seances from the uses of lengths of muslin to a dollop of phosphorescence...Gibb's novel is multi-layered...add in a supporting cast of rogues, charlatans and true believers and the theatrical trappings of seances and you are pitched in a world that is rich and strange.' (4 star review, Sunday Express) 'Crossing time and continents, melding found material, real and fictitious characters and events, this is an intriguing, well-researched debut about truth and illusion, reality and the world of the spirit.' (Debut fiction review, Daily Mail) 'Astonishingly adept... mysterious, wry, sophisticated but also brutally honest' (FEAR Magazine) 'Genuinely moving' (Financial Times) 'Ideal fireside reading' (Lady) 'The author has a meticulous eye for historical detail and writes evocatively' (Irish Times) 'At turns spooky and comical, Gibb deftly weaves fact with fiction so that each page shimmers ectoplasmically with uncertainty.' (Irish Mail)

Author Information

LORNA GIBB was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. She is a university lecturer and now lives in London. She is the author of Lady Hester: Queen of the East and West's World: The Extraordinary Life of Dame Rebecca West. A Ghost's Story is her first novel.

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