Review: 'A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts' by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes

Ghosts are ubiquitous, or at least the stories about them are. Every town has their resident ghost stories and tragic history, but what is really behind them? And where is the line between learning about history and exploiting it? In A Haunted History of Invisible Women Leanne Hieber and Andrea Janes investigate these questions, among others, in ways that work for believers and non-believers. Thank to Citadel and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincere apologies for the delay in reviewing!

Pub. Date: 27/09/2022
Publisher: Kensington Books; Citadel

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess—America’s female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after their deaths. Here are the full stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful.
 
Tales whispered in darkness often divulge more about the teller than the subject. America’s most famous female ghosts, from from ‘Mrs. Spencer’ who haunted Joan Rivers’ New York apartment to Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the Salem witchcraft trials, mirror each era’s fears and prejudices. Yet through urban legends and campfire stories, even ghosts like the nameless hard-working women lost in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire —achieve a measure of power and agency in death, in ways unavailable to them as living women.
 
Riveting for skeptics and believers alike, with humor, curiosity, and expertise, A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the significant role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.

I don't know if I believe in ghosts. I've never technically seen one, although I've been in plenty of places where you might expect a proper haunting. I feel like I'm open enough to the concept that surely a ghost would have popped up by now. But I have had experiences that I can't (or don't want to) wholly explain, moments where I thought I saw something, where I could feel the history of a place pressing in on me. A potential explanation would be that I knew the history and so my mind made me experience it or that I really wanted to see my grandmother again and so I my brain gave me a glimpse of her. I'm not necessarily opposed to that but, as Hamlet said, "there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". So I find myself see-sawing between not believing in ghosts and appreciating that there might be more than I can prove. What is nice about A Haunted History is that Hieber and Janes are no trying to convert you. They appreciate, and make explicit, that ghost stories are constructed things, told for a specific purpose at a specific time. In this way it aligns nicely with the constructed nature of gender, as they explore in their introduction, in that gender too is made up of norms and expectations which are performed over time. At the intersection, then, of the stories we tell about gender and the stories we tell about ghosts, a conversation about the power of storytelling and the storyteller emerges, which makes A Haunted History a fascinating read.

A Haunted History is divided into seven parts, each of which are named after certain archetypes, which they aim to explore. Part one, 'Death and the Maiden', considers the ghosts of young women, who haunt the places where they met their untimely deaths. Here I especially found the chapter on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire affecting, while the discussion of academic ghosts and what they say of the female college experience was intriguing. Part two, 'Witches', looks, as the name implies, at female ghosts who are connected to witchcraft accusations, but I was glad there was a strong focus on the youth of Dorothy Good in Salem, especially. Regardless of what current popular culture makes of the Salem witchtrials, lives were destroyed here and that needs to be considered. Part three, 'Mothers and Wives', features the story of Ma Green, which I found delightful. I'd love to imagine her still present on her beloved ships. The fourth part considers the 'Bad Girls, Jezebels, and Killer Women', especially the female ghosts of the Frontier. Here, some readers might have issues because Hieber and Janes purposefully retain the language of the period, meaning we're not speaking of sex-workers here. While I follow them in that choice, I was left a little dissatisfied by this particular chapter although I can't entirely put my finger on why. Part five is about '"Madwomen"' and the quotation marks are very much part of the title. Madness is frequently assigned to women because it makes for a very easy story. I really appreciated the kindness with which they approached Sarah Winchester and the Wandering Woman of Central New York. Finally, 'Spinsters and Widows' get their turn in part six, which features some very intriguing if difficult to prove stories, while 'Frauds, Fakes, and Mythmaking' is the topic for the seventh and final part. 

Like I said above, A Haunted History is a very intriguing read, which is bound to invite conversations, just like ghost stories themselves. Often, when I review a horror book, I'll explain why I am such a fan of horror, namely because I think certain things get revealed in these stories that are not allowed to the surface in others. Similarly, I fully agree with Hieber and Janes, that ghost stories too reveal something about how we think of the past, of women, of men, of power, and of our own modern time. The two authors take it in turns, roughly, to write a chapter each and they frequently bring in their own experiences as tour guides and/or as people sensitive to the ghostly realm. When it comes to the latter, I think they both strike a great balance between being honest about what they have experienced and allowing the reader the space to make their own judgements. That extension of grace also makes it easier to follow along as a full-blown skeptic, I imagine. Because their tour-guiding experience is so crucial to the book, the book is limited to the United States of America. This makes complete sense form a feasibility standpoint. However, because ghost stories are so culturally inflected, I would have loved to see a chapter or so dedicated to different kinds of ghost stories, from other cultures, as this contrast might bring out the clarity needed to really nail the American ghost stories. I think Native American ghost stories or legends could have been an excellent resource here, especially as this would have connected nicely to the chapter about the Frontier. Overall, however, this is an interesting book that I would happily recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in all things ghostly.

I give this book...

4 Universes!

A Haunted History of Invisible Women provides a fascinating insight into the various stories of female ghosts that haunt America, told with empathy and grace rather than sensationalism.