The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll
an audiobook review by Nicki Gerlach
Ben Gould is a young man who falls and hits his head on the ice, and is supposed to die,
but doesn't. Ben's ghost -- who is supposed to help Ben transition into the afterlife, and clean up any of his
unfinished business -- is therefore somewhat stranded, and the Angel of Death isn't being particularly helpful; he
tells the ghost just to hang out until they can figure out the "glitch" that resulted in Ben's non-death.
Glass Soup by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by David Soyka
A sequel to White Apples, the author depicts karma as sort of like going to school.
As you begin to grasp more about yourself, you "graduate" to higher levels of consciousness. Though
without ever really getting the big picture. Indeed, the novel's title refers to a code phrase sent back from the dead that
supposedly explains everything to those who can recognize it.
Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by David Soyka
Harry Radcliffe is a celebrated architect, divorced but still on good terms personally and professionally with
his former spouse, currently seemingly equally in love with two different women.
The Sultan of Saru is pestering Harry to build an edifice, the titular dog museum, that
doesn't much interest Harry. Unfolding events persuade Harry to accept the job, that in turn not only becomes a life
transformational event for Harry, but also portends drastic cosmic implications as humans understand, or rather misunderstand, them.
White Apples by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by William Thompson
A posthumous fable of resurrection, a meditation upon the nature of memory and identity, and a frank and at times moving affirmation
of the redemptive power of love, this parable is framed equally by the author's vision of a moral universe that extends beyond the
theories of physics that also serve to inform it. The novel opens with Vincent Ettrich, a
master of the male gaze, whose love of women has led him into yet another affair that soon takes a decidedly bizarre turn. While
dining with his new-found femme, Vincent bumps into a business acquaintance who appears very surprised to see him. No more surprised
than Vincent when he discovers that his friend is actually dead.
Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by Rich Horton
This is the story of Joe Lennox. He is modestly happy, living in Vienna, fairly lonely but otherwise in fine shape.
He meets Paul and India Tate, a slightly older couple who sweep him into their life. Joe is fascinated by
the two of them: their conversation, their imagination, and, inevitably, India's sexiness. All is well for awhile,
until Paul leaves on a trip, and India and Joe spend enough time together to realize their mutual attraction. Before
long, events take the expected turn until Paul discovers the affair and
he dies of a heart attack. But then Joe and India find themselves tormented by Paul's malicious ghost.
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The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by Rich Horton
Frannie McCabe, the 47-year old police chief of Crane's View, New York, is on his 2nd marriage.
He was rather a juvenile delinquent as a youth, and, in high school, he dated the girl who is now the mayor; but by and large he
seems respected and happy. One day, he adopts a sickly 3-legged dog but,
within a few days, the dog is dead. Frannie's attempts to bury the dog seem to
set in motion a series of increasingly surrealistic events. The strangeness starts out
small; the buried dog disappears, and needs to be reburied. The dog turns up again, sort of, in an Old Master painting.
The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by Rodger Turner
Thomas Abbey was a lonely child. Grown up, he's still fascinated by the work
of Marshall France, a legendary author of children's books. France had
retreated from the world and hidden himself away in tiny Galen, Missouri,
before dying of a heart attack at age 44. Tom Abbey meets a fellow France
aficionado, Saxony Gardner, while browsing a bookstore and finding a rare
title he covets but that she's reserved. He mentions a desire to write a
France biography and Saxony offers to help by doing research. Together, they
arrive in Galen on a slow, summer day; expectant, delighted, and a little
trepidacious of what they might find. To their surprise, the town has been
waiting for them.
The Marriage of Sticks and Kissing the Beehive by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by David Soyka
Kissing the Beehive is a metaphor for what happens when you get
too intimate with dangerous things. For Edward Durant Jr, it is the alluring Pauline Ostrova, for whose murder Durant
is convicted, and is followed by his in-cell suicide. The Marriage of Sticks is
similarly concerned with the notion of not being able to go home again.
The two novels share a setting -- Crane's View, evidently modeled after the author's own childhood hometown on the Hudson
River in New York. There is also the appearance of, as his aficionados would expect, several dogs, burning or
otherwise, that figure in the fate of the human characters. And, as also oftentimes occurs in his other work, a
supporting character, in this case local police chief Frances McCabe, appears in both books, though the protagonists
and plot lines are different.
The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by Rodger Turner
This novel is told in first person by Miranda, a rare book dealer, who delights in finding
that one book her customers can't live without. She's a popular, attractive woman who loves her lucrative career
which allows her to travel a good part of the year. But like any Carroll character, there is a particular hollowness
to her; something she's lost, she's missing, she has yet to find.
Kissing the Beehive by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by Glen Engel-Cox
Faithful readers should not have worried. While quite different in plot
from all of his previous work, this is still vintage Carroll.
It has everything we have come to expect from Carroll after ten books and as many short
stories: a first person narrator, quirky characters, richly told details, scenes
horrendous and wonderful.
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