American Ghost - A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest

"A haunting story about the long reach of the past."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR''S Fresh Air "In this intriguing book, [Nordhaus] shares her journey to discover who her immigrant ancestor really was--and what strange alchemy made the idea of her linger long after she was gone." -- People La Posada--"place of rest"--was once a grand Santa Fe mansion. It belonged to Abraham and Julia Staab, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. After they died, the house became a hotel. And in the 1970s, the hotel acquired a resident ghost--a sad, dark-eyed woman in a long gown. Strange things began to happen there: vases moved, glasses flew, blankets were ripped from beds. Julia Staab died in 1896--but her ghost, they say, lives on. In American Ghost , Julia''s great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus, traces her ancestor''s transfiguration from nineteenth-century Jewish bride to modern phantom. Family diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings take her on a riveting journey through three hundred years of German history and the American immigrant experience. With the help of historians, genealogists, family members, and ghost hunters, she weaves a masterful, moving story of fin-de-siecle Europe and pioneer life, villains and visionaries, medicine and spiritualism, imagination and truth, exploring how lives become legends, and what those legends tell us about who we are.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Hannah Nordhaus
• Verlag: Harper Perennial USA
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 08.03.2016
• EAN: 9780062249203
• ISBN: 978-0-06-224920-3
• Seiten: 352
• Abmessung: 135 mm x 203 mm x 20 mm
• Themen: Belletristik > Erzählende Literatur > Briefe, Tagebücher; Sachbuch > Philosophie, Religion > Biographien, Autobiographien; Sozialwissenschaften, Recht,Wirtschaft > Soziologie > Soziologische Theorien; HISTORY: WORLD, SOCIAL SCIENCE: Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE: Sociology / General, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Women, HISTORY: United States / 19th Century, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Historical, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Political, SCIENCE: Essays, HISTORY: Jewish, SOCIAL SCIENCE: Essays, HISTORY: Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies), SCIENCE: History, SOCIAL SCIENCE: Jewish Studies, HISTORY: Essays, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Jewish, TRAVEL: United States / West / General