Women and Ghosts

The author of The War Between the Tates and the Pulitzer prize-winning Foreign Affairs now brings her irresistible wit to the ghost story.

In nine spooky tales, Alison Lurie writes of women haunted by ghosts both literal and metaphorical: A woman about to marry Mr. Right is visited by the spirit of his first wife; a dead fiance haunts a foreign service officer every time she has an intimate moment with another man; the ghost of a girl in a Halloween costume disconcerts the perfect housewife. A secretary on a diet begins to see obese people everywhere she looks; a self-conscious poet is shadowed by her intrusive doppelganger; and a capricious, malevolent spirit seems to have inhabited an acquisitive matron’s prized piece of furniture.

Delightfully strange and beautifully told, these nine tales show Alison Lurie at her luminous best.

Alison Lurie is the author of many highly praised novels, including?The War Between the Tates,?The Truth About Lorin Jones?(Prix Femina Etranger), and?Foreign Affairs?(Pulitzer Prize for fiction). Her most recent book was?Familiar Spirits. She teaches writing, folklore, and literature at Cornell University.