Night Side of the River

August 7, 2023
Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?) delivers a memorable collection of ghost stories, interspersed with snippets of her own supernatural encounters. While there is some exploration of how spirits might inhabit new technology—in “App-Arition,” one woman’s dead husband visits her through an app on her phone—most of the stories take place in more traditional settings: a creaky manor house, a castle with a tragic past, an eerie London home. Standouts include “A Fur Coat” and “Boots,” a pair of back-to-back stories that tell his and hers versions of one couple’s harrowing winter at the “unlived-in, run-down” Crashley Estate. Max discovers a fur coat in a wardrobe and later hears a phantom baby crying at night, while her partner, Jonny, is approached by a spectral gamekeeper with an unsettling tale about the house’s former inhabitants. Many of the protagonists “live alone” because they “prefer it,” a proclivity that seems to leave them vulnerable to otherworldly visitors. Winterson includes four personal essays of her paranormal experiences, the final of which, “The Future of Ghosts,” sees Winterson raising intriguing questions about the “haunting” of the metaverse: “If you enjoy a friendship with someone you have never met, would you know if they were dead?” These supernatural tales are satisfyingly disconcerting.

September 15, 2023
Ghosts roam the bridge between the living and dead, emerging in moments of grief and change in these haunting short stories. The first section, "Devices," explores loss through modern technology. In one tale, a woman discovers an app on her phone that simulates texts and calls from her recently deceased husband. But her turbulent relationships with her spouse and sister, who had initially dated him, come to light. The other portions of the book, "Places," "People," and "Visitations," are aptly labeled for the nature of their paranormal disturbances, with each story falling further and further into the spiritual realm. Some of these sagas even bleed into one another. For example, "A Fur Coat" and "Boots" weave dueling perspectives of a couple who is tormented and driven apart by a nefarious spirit in an abandoned house. Winterson (Frankissstein, 2019) cleverly ends each section with an anecdote of her own experience with the supernatural. A bewitching collection for readers of horror and mystery, with just the right twists.

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