Customer Reviews

The Bell Witch: An American Haunting

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book probably intends to confuse you a little- it did me- by purporting to be a newly discovered diary of a known eyewitness to events in the historically-documented "Bell Witch" case. In fact, it's a very good novel. Monahan takes the basic facts (or claims) that we have and fleshes them out artfully, with a narrator, dialogue, and a point of view that work beautifully well. The gripping story takes the horror and suspense genres in a unique direction, and lives up to the incredible source material. A small complaint: he tries to wrap things in a too-neat 1990s package for us at the end- the only false note he strikes here.

The book left me very interested in this case, and my interest increased recently when I discovered close family ties to many of the people depicted here, including Elias and Sugg Fort.

This novel describes most of the significant Bell Witch facts as they have come to stand in American history/legend. The author chose the device of an unknown manuscript that gave inside information on the events of nearly 200 years ago, and took on the stance that this was as much a mystery (a murder mystery, no less) as it was a series of possible supernatural events. I didn't find this novel scary, but I don't know if I was supposed to. My own view is that this notorious case of a haunting witnessed by hundreds (including Andrew Jackson, if legend is correct) contains some unexplained elements but is also one that has grown in the telling over the decades. No one theory covers all elements here but the one that comes closest involves knowing participation by some of the family involved in the supposed poltergeist phenomena that surrounded them. Whatever else this matter was, it became deadly serious and the patriarch of the family did wind up dead, just as the spirit of the "witch" prophesied. More disturbing, true to her word, the witch did appear and she laughed at him at his funeral, as his casket was being lowered into the grave. I have read quite a bit about this disturbing folk history and have heard everything advocated from demonic presences to straightforward trickery. One recent claim was that the girl at the heart of the case was being molested by her father, that the pranks she claimed were a haunting were a cry for help, and that she got her revenge by poisoning her father to death. That may well be. Whatever the explanations are, the Bell Witch of Tennessee certainly deserves to be kept alive in memory, and it makes for a titillating study of the unexplained.

In "THE BELL WITCH," the author asks us to believe that he has recently discovered a manuscript which documents the only case in US history when a ghost actually kills a man. At the same time, the author also admits that his story is a "faction," much like "THE EXORCIST." Whether or not some of the events really happened is up to the reader to decide.

I picked up "THE BELL WITCH" after the recent success of "THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT" and was hoping to find something as equally as entertaining but this time as non-fiction. Instead, what I read was a ghost story that was more amusing at times than frightening, more predictable than surprising and left me feeling like less of a believer than intended. The discovered "manuscript," written by the local school teacher, documents the haunting of the Bell family in too much detail to actually make the reader believe that this was a daily journal. This book is only one person's account of the poltergeist and the author/editor, Brent Monahan, tries too early in his preface to convince us that everything that lies within is all true. The only real mystery here is trying to decide what events may have truly happened.

This is one of the few books to tackle the story of the Bell Witch in narritive form. I think Brent Monahan does a good job of depicting the horror that the Bell family must have faced when under the assault of the "witch". The ending twist I found interesting and thought provoking and tied into the novel quite well. It does not follow the historical ending of the Bell Witch haunting (the witch actually came back to visit John Bell Jr. and had nothing more to do with Betsy Bell) but hey....this was written as a story, and the ending provides an "Ah-ha" moment to the end of the novel. I can't wait to see the movie. Overall a good book. I would reccomend it to anyone interested in the Bell Witch haunting.

This book is hard to put down. I read it in 2 days. However, I believe some accounts reported in this book are true & others are false. I am very leery about this manuscript that was found. Also, I am not sure that I believe the ending & how the "witch" came to be. The Bell family are my relatives. I have heard stories all my life about the witch. Never have I heard that the witch came to be the way the author describes. I believe most of this book is fiction.

I recently read The Bell Witch for I project in my English class. I chose this book because I thought it would be interesting to read about a true American haunting. I found the characters to be very interesting and mysterious. Especially the Bell Witch. The witch took on many identities, with many voices. It had a thing for picking on John Bell's daughter. The witch was mean to the family but also did good deeds to help the family and the community. The only thing i disliked about the book is the events were kinda drawn out and it was repetitive, another thing is that it was hard to follow and keeep track where and what the characters were doing.I would suggest this book to anyone who likes a book that gives the scared edge but still keeps you on the edge of your seat wadering whats going to happen next, and if you like mystery combined with all this I suggest you read The Bell Witch.

This was the best fiction chiller I have read all year. You never can quite tell whether it is fiction or fact. Chilling tale with a good twist at the end.

There's nothing particularly scary about this account of the bell witch presented by Brent Monahan but purportedly written by Richard Powell, a close friend of the Bell family. It is more of a mystery as the reader tries to find out what the Bell witch is and why it is haunting the Bells. One gets the impression that it's fun to be a demon, ghost, or poltergeist that plays tricks, slaps people, interrupts lives, and even kills with impunity.

Powell writes with a charming, old-fashioned style such as in this passage describing a character called Frank Miles: "Mr. Miles was not one of the community's most celebrated thinkers; manly brute force was his answer to most any problem. Despite his good intentions, he was often violent when opposed, either by animate or inanimate objects...Added to this, his vocabulary was limited to simple oaths and phrases, many of these of the crudest origin."

The most amusing parts of the book are when psychics show up to rid the house of the ghost but get their clock cleaned or scared out their wits. President Andrew Jackson attended such a session and got quite a kick out of it. The account also presents a believable account of life on the frontier during the early 1800s.

The book attempts to explain the phenomenom of a poltergeist attributing it to a disturbance that a young girl is feeling as she grows into a woman.

As for the veracity of the account actually being from Richard Powell and not Brent Monahan, I'll play along and give Monahan the benefit of the doubt. The style does change between Monahan's introduction and Powell's account. Still one would like to see this manuscript and call up the people that Monahan mentions giving him the manuscipt. And besides, I have a tendency to believe in the fanciful and outlandish, afterall, what was once considered outlandish can become status quo and what is status quo today will be considered outlandish tommorrow. However, it does seem little implausible that Richard Bell would marry Betsy given that she is being haunted by a violent ghost.

Mr. Monahan's supposed transcription of Richard Powell's "lost" manuscript has too many dubious elements to be accepted. It would have been better had whoever wrote this fictionalized account put their own name to it rather than lied to the reader about it being authentic. If considered as a novelette based upon a factual (presumably) event, it's not a bad read. As an true eyewitness account from the 1820's, however, it's way too self-conscious, lacking in authentic idiom of the day (despite attempts not to be), pulls nearly all of its details from (well-known) existing sources, and deals in detail with the subconscious mind long before Freud brought us to recognize it. It also pussy-foots around the attitudes of master to slave--political corectness in 1820? The theory John Bell might have molested Betsy has been around for years. Whoever the author of this book is merely wove that rumor into a narrative and pretended it was authentic. Semi-nice try.

Having lived in Adams, Tennessee and lived with this story I have to say that much of it is unexplained but legendary. I know people who have had strange things happen that may or may not be coincidental, but unexplainable. I have been to the cave myself and taken pictures. All of the pictures taken at the cave came out foggy vs. the other pictures on the same roll of film. Many may not believe what happened as true, but it cannot be explained away when strange things continue to happen today. Take it or leave it but to dismiss it is difficult. Any book on the Bell Witch only tells of what happened to the Bell family and there has been many incidents in the last 175 years that cannot be explained or proven. It is just accepted.