Where We Start From: Hope from the Narthex of the Apocalypse

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving , first published in 1820, is the quintessential American ghost story. I read it every Autumn before Hallowe'en, and I am always impressed by Irving's abilities. Irving was a great tale-teller with a gifted imagination, and a talent for vivid, drawn-out descriptions. The Headless Horseman actually appears in the story only briefly. The rest of the time, Irving carefully develops a strong sense of place, mood, and character, three elements necessary for a successful ghostly tale. For instance, in helping the reader experience Sleepy Hollow, a real place quite familiar to him, Irving writes: "Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker...

Ray Bradbury wrote many, many short stories, and several novels. From the Dust Returned is one of his "fix-up" novels, created by stitching together short stories that are loosely related, sometimes altering elements of the stories to make them fit better with each other. Despite its Frankenstein's-Monster origins, this is one of Bradbury's masterpieces, a five-star novel. The 2001 hardback edition is covered by a dust jacket with artwork done by Charles Addams, a friend of Bradbury's, and the father of The Addams Family. This illustration was included with "Homecoming," which was a stand-alone short story in Mademoiselle magazine in October, 1946, and is Chapter Nine in the novel. The beauty of this novel lies in the richness of the prose, the humanity of the non-human (but for one member) Elliott Family of rural Illinois, and the macabre and grim atmosphere that haunts each page. Elliott Family members include Cecy, an astral-projecti...