Ghosts haunt Gail Godwin’s new novel, “Grief Cottage.” Some are actual ghosts, such as the confederate soldier who sometimes shows up on the South Carolina beach where the story mainly takes place. But Marcus, the novel’s 11-year-old narrator, visits the abandoned Grief Cottage, he sees a different ghost: the teen-age boy who was its last resident. The boy’s parents drowned in Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and he was never found.
Godwin may flirt with the magical, but she deals firmly with the realism of depression and loss. It’s those less physical, more haunting ghosts that this, her fourteenth novel, is really about.
My full review ran in The Washington Post.
No comments:
Post a Comment