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    American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
    American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
    American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
    Audiobook8 hours

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

    Written by Hannah Nordhaus

    Narrated by Xe Sands

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The dark-eyed woman in the long black gown was first seen in the 1970s standing near a fireplace. She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events: blankets ripped off while they slept, the room temperature plummeting, disembodied breathing, and dancing balls of light.

    La Posada-"place of rest"-had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. The room with the canopy bed had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home's original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In American Ghost, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother, Julia, from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story and how difficult it can sometimes be to separate history and myth.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 10, 2015
    ISBN9781494578169
    American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
    Author

    Hannah Nordhaus

    Hannah Nordhaus is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Beekeeper’s Lament, which was a PEN Center USA Book Awards finalist, Colorado Book Awards finalist, and National Federation of Press Women Book Award winner. She has written for the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Outside magazine, the Times Literary Supplement, Village Voice, and many other publications.

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    Reviews for American Ghost

    3.5/5

    66 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Really interesting juxtaposition between genealogical study and attempts to connect with the spirits via paranormal means.
    • 4/5
      The author's great-great-grandmother, Julia Staab, is said to haunt her old house, now a hotel in Santa Fe. The ghost stories talk of abuse and insanity, contrary to family lore, so she decides to see if she can track down the truth about her supposedly restless ancestor. All her substantial information comes from traditional sources - newspaper articles, diaries, other archives - but she also tries alternative methods, including ghost hunters and psychics. These yield interesting speculation but nothing especially helpful. That said, the rest of the book is quite interesting. It's the story of an American family: German Jews who immigrated in the 1800s and made their fortune, and what later became of them and their descendants. There are a couple of side journeys about cousins and aunts and uncles, including an especially moving part about a relative lost in the Holocaust, but it all weaves together into a single family history. The ending, which returns to the spiritualist side of things, was a tad hokey for my taste, but on the whole it was an engaging look at society life in Victorian New Mexico. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      There is not a direction this book takes that is without interest - from Willa Cather to Franz Kafka, Burro Alley to Theresienstadt, genealogists to ghost hunters. There are a few visits that last too long and some that end at hello, the story and writing is compelling.
    • 4/5
      Memoir about the author's ancestors who were early Jewish settlers in Santa Fe, New Mexico - one of whom supposedly still haunts a hotel there. Interesting read.
    • 1/5
      First, to comply with the "Terms & Conditions", I hereby disclose in this, my review, that I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. This was my first work of non-fiction received in this manner.

      I must say that, unfortunately, I was less than thrilled. I found it put together quite haphazardly, at times, with chapters that had very little to do with Julia Staab. Almost half way through, we'd learned what felt like next to nothing about the ghost or her story. Instead, the author felt it necessary to detail her adventures with ghost hunters, psychics and all other manner of the less than typical research methods she used. I understand that information from that time period can be scarce, as she noted several times that it was for the family members in question, but the repetition of information and seemingly endless tangents left the overall story Nordhaus was trying to tell feeling fractured. I would guess that the book could have been about half of its current size, were this information left out, particularily the information on her relatives affected by the Holocaust. Though a direct relative of Julia, it had nothing to do with her as it happened well after she was dead. Again, I feel as though it detracted from the overall point of the book.

      Additionally, the author would frequently double back, creating an unclear timeline on occasion. For this reason, I wouldn't even feel comfortable using this for reference material, although the Bibliography included in the waning pages is extensive and may hold some gems, from a research perspective, that may prove useful to the right audience.

      Overall, I would NOT recommend this to anyone who isn't a relative of Ms. Nordhaus.
    • 3/5
      American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest by Hannah Nordhaus is a 2015 Harper publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. With a title like this one, I was sure this book would make an excellent Halloween read. I'm not a slasher, blood and gore type horror fan, but instead lean toward the creepy, chiller ghost and haunted house stories. So, I was all set to immerse myself in a little history, a little haunting, and maybe a few thrills and spine tingling moments to cap it off. Sadly, this book was, well, to be totally honest, boring. The history provided about Julia would definitely be interesting to one's own family, but to anyone else, it was very dry reading. The ghost story is apparently one of note and concerns the author's great, great, grandmother Julia Schuster Staab, who allegedly haunts a hotel in Sante Fe. Through the years, those who spent the night in Julia's room have complained of various unexplained temperature drops, orbs of dancing lights and other very unsettling occurrences. The story grew to epic proportions and of course embellishments went without saying. So, the author began a quest to learn of Julia's past, her heritage, her marriage to a man many believe treated her cruelly, her supposed descent into madness, and her death. Determined to separate fact from fiction, the author employed mediums, did intense historical research, and was often surprised by her findings. I think the title will throw some people off, and although I did read the synopsis, as a person who also enjoys history, I felt I had a good understanding of what to expect from the book. It was an interesting journey in many aspects, but it was such a personal quest, that I often failed to connect to the author's enthusiasm, frustrations, and at times her methods. I will confess, I did think of abandoning this one by the half way mark, but couldn't let it go without knowing what the final verdict would be. I was pleased by the way the book ended, which will give the reader a sense of peace and closure. This story is also a kind of cautionary tale, in which we are reminded how myths can grow to outlandishness, leaving only a particle of truth behind. The myth and legend of this haunting will be impossible to extinguish now that it's been embedded in the minds of the public, who prefer to fiction most of the time in order to capitalize on the public's curiosity. Still, for the author, I felt that in the end, she at least derived a sense of accomplishment from her research and it was worth her while in the end. 2.5 stars
    • 5/5
      First of all I would just like to mention that there is a fight over who gets to keep this book - my sister or myself. As of this moment she is going to snatch it away while having it disappear in her collections although I have dibs on getting it back if she chooses not to keep it. When I read the first few pages I was caught up and then came upon the part with the first psychic. I was thinking to myself this isn't going to be good since she is going to weaken the book with all this drivel but the very real search using various psychics, ghost hunters and others grounded this book while also lightening the atmosphere. The more you get into the back story further into the book the more it weaves it together. Although it starts off to find out about a ghost the story isn't truly a ghost story. Instead the story is a beautiful journey to weave together the missing parts of the past, to find oneself and to be able to learn just what the world is about. In her hopes to solve a mystery Hannah was also showing us the way of resolving the mystery of herself. I loved how the book dived into the past and brought 19th century Santa Fe to us and what it was like to live in a world where funds removed obstacles where things were still untamed. Furthermore the book offers a tantalizing taste of Jewish life that is barely ever offered in history books. And the best part is when she goes off on a rabbit trail to explain what happened to her great-great-aunt it didn't detract from the story but added it. Hannah is a master storyteller and I loved this unexpected surprise that rested within these pages. And it had me crying when I read the simple yet powerful ending to this book. A true gem! **Received this book as part of the Giveaway at Goodreads.com for free in exchange for a review**
    • 3/5
      I was so excited to read this book because the premise was so intriguing. The author had an ancestor that was supposedly haunting a hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico and she set out to learn as much as she could about her ancestor, Julia Schuster Staab. The haunting was so well known that it was even featured as an episode on unsolved mysteries. It turns out I could have just watched that episode and probably been satisfied. The author really had to reach to get enough to fill an entire book. Part of the problem was that it was nearly impossible to obtain ainformation about Julia directly. Most of what she wwas able to learn came from a diary that she found that was kept by Julia's daughter. The facts that could be concretely proven about Julia only filled a few pages. According to legend the haunting was supposedly due to Julia's mental illness after the death of her baby. Wether Julia wastormentedby such an occurance couldnever be proven. The bulk of the book was geneology about the authior's family that would have been of interest only to family members. I love learning about history and the descriptions of the American West at the time of Julis's life were of interest to me. Making up the rest of the book were some of the author's side excursions. Some I enjoyed like her trip to the ghost tour of The Stanley (the hotel made famous by author Stephen King in The Shining) and some I didn't enjoy like her page and a half rambling about trying pot in order to connect with Julia.
    • 4/5
      3.5 Although I expected this to be more of a ghost story, which many different, psychics, dowsers, and other paranormal professionals die five their opinions, I found so much more. The story of a Jewish family, settling Santa Fe, in its earliest days. So much history, politics, the railroad and the family with Julia as its matriarch and Abraham as the paternal head. From the beginning Julia missed Germany where her family was very prominent and she never truly embraced her new home. They had many children and it was interesting reading about they family, many whom suffered from depression and other forms of mental illnesses. Julia many times went to sanitariums and made many trips back home to Germany, in hopes of a cure for her lingering depression. Many times her daughters would accompany her. Abraham became very successful, building a huge house and hiring help for Julia, even bringing cousins over from Germany as a companion for her, but nothing seemed to have a lasting effect.Of course the archbishop Cather fame is mentioned as is his relationship with both Julia and Abraham and the church he built. Found this book quite fascinating and loved how the author went about uncovering and discovering the pieces of her family. So not exactly a ghost story, though it is said that Julia's ghost does roam throughout the hotel, which used to be her house. Well who knows, stranger things have happened. ARC from publisher.