Ghosts, Love, Regret and Hope: All Sides of the Same Coin
Like so many writers, I am constantly carrying around fragments of quotes in my mind. And whether they be from songs, books, poems, speeches, or films, these words are often the catalyst for my own creative works.
My first novel, A Murder Country, was spurred on by a line from an Eagles song (“Outlaw Man”), and my most recent novel, Through the Dark, was created in response to two quotes from two separate authors (one author I admire and the other an author that I feel conflicted with, on a creative and personal level): William Faulkner and David Foster Wallace.
For Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” and Wallace believed that “Every love story is a ghost story.” Those words echoed in the back of my mind as I wrote Through the Dark. However, it isn’t until now, long after the writing of the book (I actually wrote the novel immediately after finishing A Murder Country), that I realize just how clearly the fingerprints of Faulkner’s and Wallace’s words are seen throughout my story.
Through the Dark is about a man, Matt, who is haunted (both literally and figuratively) by his dead wife, Liz. It is a love story, sure, and it is a ghost story; but more than that, Through the Dark is a story about regret and the ways that the past single-handedly influence our presents and our futures. In the novel, a man takes a road trip with the ghost of his wife in the passenger seat. Over the course of their journey, we come to learn about Matt and Liz, both individually and collectively.
I’ve said it multiple times before (as so many authors have), but writing is a dive into the subconscious. I didn’t sit at my computer and actively say to myself, “Write about the way that ghost stories, by default, explore guilt and regret and things of the past.” Instead, I decided that I wanted to tell the story of someone who has lost someone so important to him that he doesn’t know if he will actually be able to move on. It wasn’t until I read the first draft over that I realized just how accurate ghost as a metaphor is. For me, a ghost isn’t just some paranormal apparition or experience. Rather, a ghost is longing and hope, those things wanted, and those things lost. The said and unsaid, the done and undone. The attained and the unattainable. Nostalgia may be the most present ghost for each one of us; and whenever that emotion sweeps over us, whether brought on by a song or an experience or a simple memory of our younger days, we are haunted by a ghost.
For us, I argue, we live with ghosts each and every day. And in this sense, I challenge David Foster Wallace. Every story is a ghost story.
While, by my definition above, each of my previous books is a ghost story, Through the Dark is my first classic ghost story (in the sense that someone who’s died comes back to physically haunt another person).
It’s no wonder that I wrote a classic ghost story. In fact, those closest to me are probably shocked that it took me four books to finally publish a story centered around a ghost. That’s because ghost stories are what drew me to fiction when I was a kid. R.L Stine’s Goosebumps series captivated me, and while I don’t enjoy horror as a genre or the demonic and poltergeist-esque ghosts of so many books and movies, many of my absolute favorite stories include classic ghosts. Two nearly (I might even argue completely) perfect stories contain and/or revolve around ghosts.
Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude sees the ghost of Melquìades returning to the Buendìa home, and the Kevin Costner-starring film Field of Dreams revolves around the ghosts of long-dead baseball players who come back to play the sport at an Iowa man’s farm. But what makes these stories so beautifully constructed (and what I hope I’ve done with Through the Dark) is that they don’t focus on the ghost(s) as central characters. These beings are merely part of the story—characters we can follow, root for, and ultimately care about. It’s the genre of magical realism at its best: Allow the unexplained to simply exist so as to better tell a story about the human condition.
I hope that readers come away from my book with a sense of hope, realizing that they, themselves, have their own ghosts to contend with. And instead of being afraid of these ghosts or frustrated about those things of the past, whether it be love or regret or hope, the best option may be to simply embrace these aspects and emotions and accept that they are part of who we are.
Through The Dark is available from ABC Group Documentation.
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