The atmosphere of Messages from the Dead by Sandy DeLuca is what makes this novella a riveting read. First and foremost is the community college and former pediatric hospital for kids with tuberculosis. The corridors lead Donna and the reader into realms of terror. Corners made up entirely of shadows and wisps of smoke, staircases that lead to impossible heights and depths, basements that contain unimaginable instruments of misery. The descriptions are marvelous, and reminded me in many ways of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. It’s not often where a haunted location comes to life, and Ms. DeLuca pulls it off. There are numerous hauntings (I’ll come back to this later) involving children, troubling adults and missing young women. Many are chilling and quite creative. The present day interactions between Donna and her grandmother, a practitioner of the dark arts, are well presented – as are past reminiscences of Donna’s childhood living with her grandmother.
A note about the passages describing the hauntings. I think there are too many of them. While some are nicely done and are illustrative of how ghost stories can be well written, some are also repetitive and lackluster. I felt that some could be left out, with the result being a couple of strong jolts which stand alone instead of being watered down by additional accounts which were vaguely familiar to previous incidents. An unintended consequence of repeated ghostly visits is that the reader is well ahead of Donna in realizing that certain folks are ghosts (more than a few times, I felt like yelling, “Come on, Donna, get with the program! That’s a ghost! How can you be so dense?”) The author also introduces a minor character towards the end that results in an unnecessary subplot (a sexual relationship), the outcome of which doesn’t do much for the story. As result, when the shocking conclusion arrives, it feels rather abrupt relative to the frequent and repeated hauntings that came previously.
Despite these minor flaws, Messages from the Dead is a blast – a real nifty ghost story.
A note about the passages describing the hauntings. I think there are too many of them. While some are nicely done and are illustrative of how ghost stories can be well written, some are also repetitive and lackluster. I felt that some could be left out, with the result being a couple of strong jolts which stand alone instead of being watered down by additional accounts which were vaguely familiar to previous incidents. An unintended consequence of repeated ghostly visits is that the reader is well ahead of Donna in realizing that certain folks are ghosts (more than a few times, I felt like yelling, “Come on, Donna, get with the program! That’s a ghost! How can you be so dense?”) The author also introduces a minor character towards the end that results in an unnecessary subplot (a sexual relationship), the outcome of which doesn’t do much for the story. As result, when the shocking conclusion arrives, it feels rather abrupt relative to the frequent and repeated hauntings that came previously.
Despite these minor flaws, Messages from the Dead is a blast – a real nifty ghost story.
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