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(More customer reviews)At Halloween, I like to venture from my normal reading and choose something a little more in season. I am no aficionado of the "horror" genre, but allegedly-true tales of the paranormal are more my style. I chose "Night Stalks the Mansion" by Constance Westbie and Harold Cameron for this year's Halloween Book because it was a well-known classic and because the story took place in the western suburbs of Philadelphia -- the neighborhood that I call home. I bought it yesterday morning, started reading it after lunch, and I didn't put it down until it was finished. Of course, it is not a particularly hefty volume, but y'all will just have to take my word for it that my focusing on a single endeavor for a whole afternoon is a rare event.
What was particularly compelling to me about the house on Plum Lane was how completely believable the story was. These ghosts (or whatever) turn out to be annoying to the Cameron family more than malevolent, although their very presence freaks out uninitiated visitors. Cameron tells the story -- with Westbie -- of trying to understand their cohabitants rather than trying to necessarily get rid of them. It was not a particularly scary story, except early on when one doesn't quite know where it all is going to lead, but as the details become clearer, one begins to have some pity on the disembodied walkers of the grounds.
An interesting note accompanies the 2005 reprinting of "Night Stalks the Mansion." Apparently the project has been picked up by a grandnephew of Cameron's, and he is trying to get a movie financed. There is a web page (...) with some details, and from what is available, it does not look promising. The Harold Cameron of of the nephew's endnote and movie synopsis seems to be different than in the book. I am not sure which treatment is more accurate, the latter seems far more interesting to me.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Night Stalks the Mansion: A True Story of One Family's Ghostly Adventure
Back by popular demand
A supernatural detective story
Winner of the 1977 National Writers Club Award for Nonfiction
Now in paperback, this true story recounts a Philadelphia family's encounter with a supernatural presence in their eighteenth-century mansion. After experiencing footsteps at night, opening doors, strange sounds and activity that centered around the library, they investigate, unearthing the mansion's tragic past and changing their beliefs about the supernatural world.
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