Bill Kupersmith's Reviews > The Ghost Notebooks

I so wanted to like this book. It has an ideal plot. A couple who work in the artistic sector in New York City--he's a musical editor and she's a museum curator--flee to "upstate" (by NYC standards, Dutchess County, an under two hour drive, is "upstate" which I suppose puts Buffalo at the North Pole) to be custodians of an estate and museum that belonged to a 19th-c. eccentric writer. But narrator Nick is utterly self obsessed (he sounds as if he thinks he made a huge and generous sacrifice by actual marrying his long-time live-in girlfriend Hannah). She is the only interesting character and written out of the story early. We are also treated to excepts from the remains of famous writer, which are unendurably banal, even when he describes a infestation by ghosts. Most importantly, though supposedly being a ghost story, this book is not even remotely scary, not even a little shiver. If you like ghost stories about boring ghosts narrated by a narcissist, you might like this one.