Customer Reviews

All That Lives: A Novel of the Bell Witch

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I had never heard of the Bell Witch before reading Melissa Sanders-Self's incredible novel, but after staying up half the night to finish the book I felt I knew both the spirit and all the people it haunted intimately. The story is fascinating and the author does a wonderful job of creating memorable characters who feel like people you might actually know, even though they lived almost 200 years ago in rural Tennessee.

It begins with the Betsy Bell experiencing a subtle feeling of something evil in the woods and moves quickly into a classic poltergeist situation where rocks are thrown and bedclothes ripped off and Betsy is slapped by invisible hands. From there the community gets involved and over time the powerful force develops a voice and begins to speak, telling amazing stories as well as gossip about the people in the small town of Adams.

The character of the spirit is complicated, intriguing and in some ways very modern.In the final scenes Betsy struggles to understand why the spirit has tortured her and her family and the spirit explains it is the life of all that lives, it is so powerful it can not be comprehended by her simple human mind because it is so much more than human. Sanders-Self hints at several possible explanations, but ultimately the reader is allowed to decide for themselves why this mysterious haunting occured.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what can't be explained. It will make you think and entertain you at the same time. I can't wait to read this author's next novel.

I first encountered the Bell Witch story when I was eight years old in the children's book Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey by Kathryn Tucker Windham. The chilling account of the long-lasting incidents at the Bell family farm stuck with me all these years, and I was somewhat reluctant to risk ruining my personal imagery of the account by reading the novel by Sanders-Self. I was, however, pleasantly surprised: the book is well-researched and well-written. The author brought to life real people with real qualities - good and bad. What is most impressive is the author's ability to shed light on the supernatural entity without trivializing it or attempting to claim she understands it, either. Readers will feel the curiosity, bewilderment, anger, anguish, grief and joy that forces them - just as it forced the Bells - to constantly second-guess their understanding of the sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevalent creature. Kudos to the author for her musical and triumphant piece on such a famous and daunting subject. Surely she has added to the timelessness of the Bell family story.

I had never heard of the Bell Witch before I read Melissa Sanders-Self's novel. I could not put the book down. I loved her descriptions the time. I think the dialogue was accurate to the period. She kept me on the edge of my seat. I started the book and finished it in one sitting. After reading the novel, I did a little research on the real story. I was that interested.
Thanks Melissa Sanders-Self for an intertaining read.

I loved this book from beginning to end and I couldn't put it down. When it was over I wanted to go back and read it again because I didn't want to leave the beautiful countryside or the wonderful lively characters. I had never heard of the Bell Witch but the author creates a spirit that is evil and frightening, yet also wise and good. I found the themes and the story FASCINATING and thought provoking. I want all my friends to read it so we can talk about it. I highly recommend this novel if you like to think about all the things we hear about that can not be explained. Plus, the writing is great!

The novel starts out with great promise but loses steam well before its anticlimactic ending. In "All That Lives . . ." , the Bell family of a small 1815 Tennessee farming community is haunted by an other worldly force that visits during the night. The force is referred to by many names throughout the novel: The Spirit, The Devil, The Being, The Demon, The Witch. It tortures, taunts, tricks, kills, and rescues. Although the author does a good job of capturing the language and atmosphere of the period, the story lost interest for me when it became apparent that the background story of a vengeful and punishing, yet loving and compassionate God seemed too didactic for the type of fiction I prefer reading. I borrowed this one from the book exchange at my office so nothing lost financially in the experience but the time invested here could well have been better spent elsewhere.

I found myself very interested in these characters' story and unable to put this book down through the first half. It seemed to me that whatever point, climax or conclusion that the author may have intended was not communicated sufficiently, or else she just ran out of steam once she reached a certain point in her story. I found myself not caring what happened to the characters and forced myself through the end of it. She was obviously trying to tie the mystery of this manifestation to the abuse of a young girl, though not successfully in my estimation. Aside from the story, one thing that I felt a bit uncomfortable about was, though this is a work of fiction, she allows her readers to believe that a real historical figure was engaged in sexual abuse. I'm sure his living decendents wouldn't appreciate that conclusion.

This book was long winded drawn out and down right boring. I'd suggest this book to anyone suffrering from insomnia. A definite disappointment.

I loved the story of the Bell Witch. I read a lot of horror novels and the hauntings in this book were unique and kept me intrigued. I could not wait to find out why this family (especially the daughter) was being tortured. Unfortunately, my curiosity was not satisfied and I was upset that the story ended with little explanation. There are many unanswered questions like: Why were people outside of the Bell home tortured? Where exactly did this spirit come from? Did the jawbone have anything to do with the haunting? Why did she suffer painful encounters when it was stated that the spirit only had her best interest in mind? Where did the "witch creatures" come from? Did Old Kate really summon the witch? Was it really a witch? It did not possess the characteristics of a witch. It behaved more like a poltergeist or doppelganger. What was wrong with Josh? Why did the spirit not want Betsy to be with her love? The spirit revealed an unhappy Betsy in the future, but why was she unhappy and was this unexplained unhappiness worth having stones and twigs thrown at her? Why did the spirit not broadcast Jack's wrongdoings if that was the reason that he suffered the most? The story was going well until the end. Maybe a sequel would suffice to respond to the unanswered questions.

The author does a good job of re-creating early America. But be warned: in either a failed attempt at more "formal" and old-fashioned speech or the worst case of Tin Ear you've ever read, these characters are made to speak out-landish dialog. No human being in the history of the race ever spoke like these people do. Apart from that, however, it is a good story, well-told though not "scary."

I have read several other books about the Bell Witch haunting in Adams, Tennesee in the early 1800s. It has always been a fascinating tale for me, especially since no one alive today is really sure what exactly was there, only that something was in fact HAPPENING. I opened "All That Lives" by Melissa Sanders-Self expecting much more than I got. What a colossal piece of .... It started out being an interesting novel of the Bell Witch phenomenon told from the point of view of Betsy Bell, historically the most frequent target of the "spirit"'s abuse, and digressed into some kind of goofy, pretentious, New Agey, quasi-feminist "child molester gets divine punishment" thing. Early on, I was interested in what this author would attribute this noted phenomenon to; demons, black-magic retribution from angry neighbors, African JuJu, Native American spirits or something nobody has put forth before. 450 pages, not to mention 23 bucks, later and I'm still not sure what the hell this book was about...