Popular Culture Review - Volume 26, Number 2 - Summer 2015
Blurring the Lines between Biography and Fiction:
Writing About Ghosts
Lorna GibbA
I
of a novel that hoped to say something about the nature of biography. The
topic itself, that of the historically famous and enduring spirit entities, John and
Katie King, while rich in historical account and primary source material, lacked
chronological cohesion. The novel form allowed this to be constructed while
fame that they did, in essence by making them real and believable within the
context of the work itself. The use of traditional biographical source material,
while allowing a thematic exploration of what draws us to some personalities
both in life and in literature.
couple of well received biographies and a short memoir, and my original
had interested me greatly in the past but while casually researching a vague
idea I had about writing a book on the lives of women mediums, I noticed an
interesting and somewhat curious phenomenon.
In accounts of many of the séances, in the US, in the UK, in Italy,
the Netherlands, even Russia, over a period spanning two centuries, two
popular ghosts seemed to be mentioned more than any other. The ghosts
mid nineteenth century. They were often the friendly, entertaining face of the
séance and as such would be introduced by many mediums in order to draw
crowds, either to reinvigorate a failing career or to boost an earl 䁽