Ghost Walking

Mark Spencer writes magnificently well! I have all three of his books about the Allen house in Monticello Arkansas. Haunted Love Story is his introduction to buying the haunted mansion and the reason for the books. Ghost Walking is expressed into imaginable events surrounding the facts of the Allen house. I love how he explains the letters in detail with an added sense of humor. I was so enthralled with the actual conversations between ladell and prentiss that I had to read, Each Other to Live For. That explained all the letters Mark wrote in his book Ghost Walking. "Have you ever seen a ghost walking? I am one." The title suggests the focal point of ladell ending up being a ghost to tell her story. I'm very impressed with Marks ability to create the scene in real time and keep the reader going to the next page defining this world blended into the next. He brings the characters to life conversing from the actual letters into depth. I am hoping that there will be more books entertaining these documents. Very good reads for those loving life and living death. Thanks for entertaining me, the afterlife lives on through the living. *****

While I don’t normally read stories about the dead, this book felt more alive than I expected. Ladell’s lessons discovered while dead helped make her life while alive better understood.I enjoyed the beauty of Marc’s writing that helped me grasp the complex issues of grief and abandonment Ladell experiences. Why she wants to die and how badly she wanted to feel accepted and loved.And I also became empathic and drawn into Ladell’s privileged but tragic life, hoping she could get free from Prentiss, and find her own way. Although you know what the end will be, I kept reading to discover why.Appreciate how the author addressed Ladell’s complexities without being overly sentimental (where you’d just feel sorry for her or exasperated you quit reading). He adds humor, minor characters who too struggle with desire for love, and gives us shades of the antagonists’ weaknesses, that the journey is an enjoyable but ever evolving one. (That’s not an easy feat when you already know the ending. And especially since Ladell is melancholy for most of the book.)It does intrigue me to read the nonfiction depiction of the house and Ladell and her upper crust family.

If you are not already familiar with the premise of this book, it will be helpful to know that its protagonist, Ladell Bonner, and all the other primary characters were actual people and, at least prior to Ladell’s suicide in 1949, the situations shown here are basically factual. The author describes his experiences with Ladell’s ghost--after he and his family moved into her old house in Monticello, Arkansas--in his excellent  A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House , which has also received extensive coverage in several TV series and a soon-to-be released feature film. “Ghost Walking” focuses on Ladell’s own story, smoothly reverberating between life and afterlife, incorporating many of the actual letters she left behind in the house, and adding colorful speculation where the details cannot be known. I’ve read very few novels that intermix fact and fiction so cohesively.I am familiar with much of Spencer’s earlier work and have always been fond of his whimsical, compassionately bemused voice and the seemingly effortless way he presents his characters and their stories. And he just gets better and better. The descriptions are wonderfully clear, dead-accurate, and often hauntingly beautiful. He creates strong suspense in acts as simple as Ladell reaching into a mailbox. Finally, his narrative of his protagonist’s afterlife is among the most imaginative and gripping that I’ve ever encountered.This book hardly sets out to scare: Its intent seems more to take the scare out of death. Regardless, its ghost’s-eye view of the world accomplishes what so many dark fantasy and horror stories try so hard to do. Details such as the black Cadillac with its familiar chauffeur, black school bus full of ghostly children, and black trolley full of suicides help to put a mildly creepy icing on the cake. After reading “Ghost Walking,” you’ll never hear those random sounds of a house settling in quite the same way, just as you’ll probably never look at life and death in the same way.

Ghost Walking may be Mark Spencer's best writing yet. My first reaction was that this is a story destined to be a major award winner for the author. The floating manner in which Mark lets the story unfold as the tale of a life swings back and forth between two existences of one poor soul. One when she is living and the other life when she's dead. You can literally feel the ghosts in the room as you read. Ghost Walking is a must read page turner for lovers of great writing. I cant wait for Mark's next book and wonder how he can possibly top Ghost Walking.

I just finished reading “Ghost Walking” and “A Haunted Love Story.” Both fiction and nonfiction just flows and keeps the reader engaged with strong, artful use of language. In the fiction, of course, there is more room to engage imagination to fill in the blanks to tell a story. That was done masterfully, and when reading the nonfiction version, it meshed together so well that I thought, "of course, that's what could have happened..." I loved the symbolism throughout and the way Ladell's story unfolds through the letters and the narrative. Like all good writing it left me wanting more.

A lovely and inspired story. Moving and sad at the same time and wonderfully written. Having grown up in an old house myself I still see, hear, and sense their inhabitants close to me. Only a gifted writer as Mark Spencer can bring that to life. Ladell and Prentiss live forever thanks to him. John Schwartz