Ghost Lights A Novel

A funny and haunting new novel from "one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation" (Los Angeles Times). Hal is a mild-mannered IRS bureaucrat who suspects that his wife is cheating with her younger, more virile coworker. At a drunken dinner party, Hal volunteers to fly to Belize in search of Susan's employer, T.—the protagonist of Lydia Millet's much-lauded novel How the Dead Dream—who has vanished in a tropical jungle, initiating a darkly humorous descent into strange and unpredictable terrain. Salon raved that Millet's "writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself." In Ghost Lights, she combines her characteristic wit and a sharp eye for the weirdness that governs human (and nonhuman) interactions. With the scathing satire and tender honesty of Sam Lipsyte and a dark, quirky, absurdist style reminiscent of Joy Williams, Millet has created a comic, startling, and surprisingly philosophical story about idealism and disillusionment, home and not home, and the singular, heartbreaking devotion of parenthood.

Dublin 1907, a city of whispered rumours. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man. Rebellious and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a girl of the inner city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. She has dozens of admirers but in the backstage of her life there is a secret.

The poems of Ghost Lights are ambitious and multi-textured narratives and lyrics, are steeped in the lore of cinema and pop culture, and above all seem to dwell in those liminal places where adolescent longing gives way to a hard-bitten and grown-up spirit of elegy. Keith Montesano is a tough and relentless poet, whose craft smanship is as impressive as his stance. Ghost Lights is an exceptionally noteworthy fi rst collection. -David Wojahn "Where // did this world / come from, and how did it appear?" Following Larry Levis, Keith Montesano discovers those fugitive moments when one life becomes another, when our angels arrive or depart. Ghost Lights presents a difficult and necessary vigil that enlarges the body of contemporary elegy, a welcome debut. -Jake Adam York Love, death, art, the love of art-glimpses fl ash past, shards assemble into mosaics of passion and pain, and the past won't steer clear of present. Keith Montesano's arresting Ghost Lights illuminates in its glow a vision of heartbreak and heroism, a rescue from the burning building and every other trap "somewhere between innocent // and harmful." This insightful poet imagines in lyrical beauty the terror and fascination of consuming flame. -Lisa Lewis Within Ghost Lights, the striking first collection by Keith Montesano, are all the elemental obsessions: violence and fi re and sex, in service of the sublime. Unafraid of ambition, free of pretension, these poems hold on to the heart and mind: they thrill, and enthrall, and, long aft er one has read them, they haunt. -Paul Guest

"Surreal, darkly hilarious and profound." —San Francisco Chronicle Ghost Lights stars an IRS bureaucrat named Hal—a man baffled by his wife’s obsession with her missing employer. In a moment of drunken heroism, Hal embarks on a quest to find the man, embroiling himself in a surreal tropical adventure (and an unexpected affair with a beguiling German woman). Ghost Lights is Lydia Millet at her best—beautifully written, engaging, full of insight into the heartbreaking devotion of parenthood and the charismatic oddity of human behavior.

Since its release in 2010, Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy has become the international standard for dramaturgy training and practice. As the field of dramaturgy continues to shift and change, this new edition prepares theatre students and practitioners to create powerful, relevant performances of all types.

Can we ever truly escape our past? The Ghostlights is the poignant story of a family of Irish women who are each looking for the real meaning of home. This is a novel about family, obligation, identity and small-town life, written with deftness and sensitivity by the author of Where the Edge Is. When a stranger checks into a family B&B – in a small village in rural Ireland – no one takes too much notice... at least until his body is found in the lake four days later. The identity of the unknown guest raises questions for polar opposite twin sisters Liv and Marianne and their mother Ethel, all of whom feel trapped by the choices they made earlier in life. They each find themselves forced to confront their past, their present and what they really want from their future. The new novel from Gráinne Murphy, whose short fiction has been longlisted for 2021 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. ‘A tale of life’s disappointments with a delightfully wry humour’ The Times ‘Gloriously rich’ Sunday Independent ‘A satisfying read’ Irish Times ‘Beautifully observed’ WI Magazine ‘A subtle, penetrating delight’ Joanna Glen, Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award ‘Funny and moving’ Elske Rahill, author of An Unravelling ‘Unflinching look at the choices we make and their impact on those around us’ Damhnait Monaghan, author of New Girl in Little Cove

Thorne Blackburn claimed to have magickal powers, to be able to tap into ancient wisdom. Others claimed he was a fake, cheating his many followers out of their money and destroying their free well. The truth may never be known . . . one dark, climactic night thirty years ago, Blackburn's most powerful ritual went horribly awry, leaving his flock shattered and one woman dead. Blackburn himself vanished. Now the scattered remains of Blackburn's followers have rallied around a new leader, the charismatic Justin Pilgrim. Hearing this, Thorne Blackburn's daughter, Truth, returns to the site of her mother's death and father's disappearance. Truth has many unanswered questions. Where are her long-lost half-siblings? Was her mother's death accident or murder? Is Pilgrim a charlatan, or are his claimed powers real? If he completes Thorn's ritual, will someone else die? The answers will lead Truth to deeply powerful truth of her own, one that will change her life forever. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ghost Lights are among the world's most baffling and fascinating paranormal manifestations. These mysterious, glowing orbs have been reported for centuries throughout the world.Ghost Lights are often spotted rising eerily out of swamps in the dead of night.They glide. across brush-tangled mountainsides and drift through valleys and open meadows as if under intelligent control. Many Ghost Lights have been seen swaying down deserted railroad tracks like lanterns carried by an unseen hand. Still others rise up from graveyards and chase after terrified motorists on lonely country roads. These are the Ghost Lights that haunt the darkened back roads, forests and marshes of our planet. This book examines some of the world's most chilling and intriguing Ghost Light cases. It explores their many haunts, the myths and legends that surround them and the attempts by modern science to explain them away. Join paranormal researcher and author, Carolyn Radford Echols on a journey into the darkest recesses of the unknown as we investigate one of the world's greatest paranormal enigmas.