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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 5, No. 27 |
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reviews a little-known novel about the spirits around us CROSSING the MEADOW |
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Ghosts can be the loneliest
dead people in the world
of TheColumnists.com
If you saw and admired M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 film "The Sixth Sense," you may be attracted to "Crossing the Meadow" (Echelon Press, $12) an obscure novel that takes us even deeper into the world of marooned ghosts and their tortured lives among the living.
Published independently in 2003 by author Kfir Luzzatto, a patent lawyer and former Israeli Army officer, it does for ghosts what Anne Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" did for the blood-sucking living dead a couple of decades back. It gives them a social strata all their own, complete with a new set of behavioral guidelines for the spooks among us.
George, the book's protagonist, is continually plagued by a recurring nightmare: He's a little boy again, watching his father bury a dead woman under the floor beneath their bathtub. He has no idea what this is all about nor why it causes him severe stress and discomfort that lingers long after he wakes up, usually in a sweat.
It takes him quite a while to figure out the nightmare. Long before he does, he figures out something even more startling: He's all grown-up now and he's a ghost.
Yes, that's a big lump of incredulity to swallow. But you'll be surprised how easily it slides down. Personally, I never thought I'd get more than a chapter or two into "Interview with the Vampire," but, once I did, I was off on a vampire quest that took me several years and a whole slew of Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" novels before I finally cried "uncle."
The appeal of Luzzatto's novel is similar. It's not the brisk pace of George's quest for truth that pulls you along. It's the detailed construction of Luzzatto's "ghost world" that does the trick.
For instance, he spells out the subtleties of ghostliness that you've always wondered about, such as, "Why do spirits rattle chains and make all those noises in the middle of the night?" Luzzatto applies concentrated logic to such questions. The answer seems obvious once you have it pointed out to you: They're trying to attract your attention, dummy!"
One of the rules of ghostdom is that you can't "cross the meadow" if there's something crucial holding you back. In George's case, it's that nightmare. He can't rest until he knows if there really is a dead woman buried under that bathtub. So how can he find out? Well, it turns out he has to wait until some living person decides to take out the tub and do a little digging.
Ghosts have their limitations, though. For example, he can't just drop a line to the family now living in his old apartment and suggest they remodel the bathroom. Ghosts can only "influence"what the living do. They can't take concrete action like writing letters. So, George begins to rattle the plumbing, using all his concentrated thought power to start the faucets dripping, etc.
Meanwhile, George and his girl-friend, Clara, work on the two little girls who share the old apartment with their Mom and Dad. One of them is grieving over her dead kitten, who fell off the window ledge because the kid forgot to leave the window open. Pretty soon, the girls start seeing apparitions quickly glide past open doorways and catch glimpses of spectral kitties, mewing at the window. It's good to get the whole family involved, you see.
Ah, you're probably wondering about the "girl friend" I mentioned. You probably didn't know ghosts could form romantic relationships with each other. Next thing you'll want to know is: Can ghosts have sex? Well, Luzzatto reveals that secret, too, but first let me explain Clara.
Clara is a ghost hooker that George meets one night. She seems to know an awful lot about him. Pretty soon that becomes clear: She used to hang out with George's dad and, in fact, he used to take her home to the apartment whenever George's mom was out of town and "do her" in the marital bed.
Yes, the fact that George is attracted to his dad's former whore is rather kinky. But you can relax: "Crossing the Meadow" is not a sex book. Luzzatto doesn't go in for ghosts doing nasty things, in or out of sheets. Though Clara is a lot older than George, the nice thing for women about the ghostly life is that they never grow any older and generally look pretty much the way they did when they died, minus all the ugly parts of that process.
If you're wondering if Clara might be the one who's buried under the bathtub, that's an interesting thought. Let's just leave it at that. Read and learn.
I was also very favorably impressed by another Luzzatto concoction in terms of ghostly behavior. It has to do with where ghosts "stay" when they're not out haunting people. (You'll notice I didn't say, "where ghosts live, since dead people don't actually live, do they?) Early in the book, George meets the ghost of his Uncle Harry, who "stays" in an abandoned building with a bunch of other ghosts. These ghosts are a breed apart from the usual homeless types who inhabit such dwellings. For instance, they have what amounts to a "condo committee" that sets rules for them, so they can get along together in such close proximity. Very amusing.
Ultimately, George and Clara have to enlist the aid of yet another living person--a researcher named David. who specializes in solving ancient mysteries. Again, they can't hire the dude. They have to "attract" his attention to their case. They do this by gremlinizing his PC, so that everytime he types in the name of the historical case he's currently working on, what appears on the screen is, "What happened to Clara Fini?"
Naturally, this makes him a little curious, although he hates computers enough to believe it's caused by a virus or some "macro" or other.
I won't tell you more because you really need to discover all the other charming aspects of "Crossing the Meadow" on you own. But I will tell you where you may get a copy: Buy it online by going to www.amazon.com and typing in the title "Crossing the Meadow" in their search engine. It's now available there for the bargain price of $9.59. It's well worth the price.
©2004 by Ron Miller.
The book cover design is ©2003 by Stacey L. King and is
used with permission of Echelon Press.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
teaches classes in mystery and related topics at Whatcom Community
College and Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
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