American Ghost: A Novel

When I'm walking our dog along coastal North Carolina's Yeopim river, I sometimes fantasize that we'll come across a washed-up cache of Blackbeard's booty. Which is not completely far-fetched since he was reputed to have been in these parts.Nevertheless, we ain't real likely to ever find anything. So I guess I'll have to settle for Janis Owens' "American Ghost." Which was a real find and a literary treasure if there ever was one.Although rooted in 1930s panhandle Florida "cracker" land, "American Ghost" is a contemporary drama. (Spoiler Alert) A tale of people whose lives are about to change because of sixty year-old events: a brutal "spectacle" lynching and the savage murders of the victim's entire family.And I can't say enough about what a splendid -- no, great -- book this is.It's simply not possible to do a better job of giving a sense of time, place and what drives the characters. And the story itself is compelling in the extreme. The terms, "page turner" and "hard to put down" were coined for books like these.I did, however, dislike some of the jacket blurbs, in which Ms. Owens was described as a southern writer. Which, in my mind, seemed to confine her to a genre or niche. Well, maybe I'm reading a slight into those blurbs that isn't really there. But I would hope that her next book jacket proclaims her to be a Great (!) American writer. Or, at least, a Great (!) southern one. Because "American Ghost" is one of the best books ever written.

This book really snuck up on me. I hadn't read any coverage on it. I picked it up as an Amazon recommendation based on other books I had read. The story is a tale of ghosts who follow the lives of Jolie and her lover Sam in A tiny town in Florida. The town was the site of an infamous lynching in the 1930's, but had escaped the more notorious Roosewood attention.Everyone in the book is "ethnic", not a white Christian. Sam has come to town to find out about his great grandfather and locate his grave. Sam is Jewish, a rare sighting in the back country of Florida. But he has told the town he is researching the roots of local Indians. Jolie is a Hoyt. Her grandmother says they are little Black Dutch. This is a name that comes to light to hide a variety of backgrounds, be they converted Jews in Spain, part black, part Indian.The novel unwinds with the ghosts lingering on the edges of the stories. Soon we see that all of our characters have been tainted by this past. The ghosts are in fact the pasts that each person bears. The writing is subtle. Each word is well considered. The author never uses sensationalism or coyly palms a secret in the name of plot alone. The characters are complex and hugely satisfying. This is a lovely pearl of a book, and I hope people read it.

I have of late lost my ability to sit and read for long stretches of time. Life got busy and I got caught up in that business of being too busy to read. Then I found this novel and the world as I knew it stopped. Janis Owen captures the heart of rural Northwest Florida unlike any other. Her characters are real to me; they remind me of people I grew up with, living as I do in this area where she writes of. There are still communities here much like those in "American Ghost," the secrets of their pasts still whispered about among those whose families have been here for generations. It is hard not to breathe in her story without also relishing what will happen on the next page. Knowing too that this is loosely based on a real lynching that took place lends the entire novel a sense of truth. I have long kept Janis Owens's books on my library shelf. I am pleased to add this one to my collection.

I am done with one of my favorite books this years. It is filled with things I love, the south, Florida, flawed people, humor, love gone awry and HISTORY. There is so much about America and Florida's fractured history in these less than 300 pages that will make you go whoa. At the center of the Story is Jolie Hoyt who is poorer than po and of mixed heritage and lineage though her family screams, we ARE white. Then there is Sam Lense a Jewish anthropology student from the University of Florida via Miami who is at work on uncovering information about a lynching in 1938 in Hendrix, FL where Jolie resides. Well, I tell you what the story is so layered, I had to slow myself down, even picking up a recipe for yellow rice and pork along the way. I cannot tell you how this story touched me, you will have to read and see for yourself...AMERICAN GHOST is literature y'all, I kid you not~Angelia Vernon Menchan

This book was okay (I know, not a raving review). It did not live up to its full potential as a gothic, falling short when it came to real description or suspense, nor as a horror -slightly scary in the beginning, never carried through. A quote on the back of the book labels this a romance--please do not believe this either. This book is as romantic as a bag of potato chips.What is this book? A great depiction of the rural south in a way that portrays them as people, rather than as hicks or racists. Sure, there are racists and hicks, but the whole reasoning behind why they are that way is also explaining. This is great if you want to learn more about US history (it is a historical fiction) or about the different cultures integrated throughout the country.

The author excels at creating the mood of the North Florida panhandle rural, river, swamp areas. I have spent a lot of time paddling a kayak or canoe in the area and her descriptions of the woods and rivers are spot on. The plot has weak spots and some things did not seem to fit quite right. So many books these days are very entertaining and move along nicely and then it seems that the authors realize they have a deadline and there is a quick move to end it. That happened here and the ending was just a little too neat and rushed. I look forward to more from this author and hope she gets a better editor next time. All in all it was a good read.