Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country

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There are children playing outside on East Fourth Street; it is August, and they are wild, they are shouting and running through the street, trying to gather up the last of the season before the fall sets in. This is how ghost stories are born, after all: not from a complete story so much as from bits and pieces that don't quite add up, a kaleidoscope of menace and unease that coalesce in unpredictable ways. The sight of Samuel’s ghost is far more exciting and menacing, after all, if he’s come back from the grave to claim his rightful inheritance.

More than just simple urban legends and campfire tales, ghost stories reveal the contours of our anxieties, the nature of our collective fears and desires, the things we can’t talk about in any other way.

Lange habe ich nachgedacht, wie man "Eerie stories" eigentlich am besten auf Deutsch überträgt, denn "Unheimliche Geschichten" oder "Gruselige Geschichten" trifft es nur zum Teil.

The ghosts who haunt our woods, our cemeteries, our houses and our cities appear at moments of anxiety, and point to instability in our national and local identities. Gertrude has also been seen inside the house, sometimes humming, sometimes playing the piano—always appearing as a frail, petite woman in period costume.

It asks more questions than it answers, particularly about why people want or need to believe in something beyond the veil, and it isn't about the truth or untruth of hauntings. That sense of the uncanny, of something not-quite-right, of things ever-so-slightly off, cries out for an explanation, and often we turn to ghosts. A woman in period costume tells them politely that the museum is closed for the day, and could they please come back at another time.