A Face at the Window [Paperback]

Dennis McFarland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 1998

After sending their only daughter off to boarding school, Cookson Selway and his wife, Ellen, travel to London to escape their empty house. But their quiet hotel has guests other than those on the register, and the vacation turns into a journey not only to another city but to another time. As Selway is drawn into a series of mysterious encounters with a young girl who died in a fall from his hotel window sixty years earlier, the characters of her life become more real to him than those of his own. An escapist with an alcoholic history, he secretly relishes the chance to move from his lackluster reality into the high drama of the girl's past. But as he begins to do so, he jeopardizes his marriage and the lives of those around him, and the consequences of his escape are far greater than he could ever have imagined.

In a novel that is by turns comic, terrifying, and tragic, Dennis McFarland delivers a fascinating story of a haunted man's spiritual awakening.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Face at the Window is a rare treat--a critically acclaimed literary novel that is also a charming tale of the supernatural. The plot is a bit like Stephen King's The Shining: a man who is sober after years of alcohol abuse undergoes a mid-life crisis while staying in a haunted hotel, and gets so involved with the ghosts he becomes estranged from his wife. The emphasis here, though, is on how the personalities of three ghosts (a violently drunken man, an adolescent girl with a split personality, and a bratty boy) mirror long-standing anxieties within the narrator. As the Boston Book Review writes, "By cleverly shifting the mystery of the novel from action to character, ... McFarland is able to imply that underlying our everyday lives are forces as inexplicable, with as much potential for horror, as any spine tingling tale." But we horror readers already knew that, didn't we? --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A man encounters the ghost of a young girl and becomes engrossed in the details of her former life, unaware that he's endangering his own life as well as his family's. From the literary hotshot who gave us The Music Room (LJ 4/1/90).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (February 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767901304
• ISBN-13: 978-0767901307
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,190,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dennis McFarland is the author of LETTER FROM POINT CLEAR, PRINCE EDWARD, SINGING BOY, A FACE AT THE WINDOW, SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND, and THE MUSIC ROOM. His short fiction has appeared in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, THE NEW YORKER, PRIZE STORIES: THE O'HENRY AWARDS, BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and Stanford University. He lives in Vermont with his wife, writer Michelle Blake. In the author photo above, he is chagrinned and concerned about the future of literary fiction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling effect and a unique plot, November 26, 1999

By 

"neeterskeeter27" (http://www.neeterskeeter.com/new) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Face at the Window (Paperback)

I found myself really getting to know the characters and I loved the little boy in the story. I remember staying up late immersed in a part of the book where the main character has another encounter with the ghost world. During this part of the book, he is very out of touch with reality, and after I finished reading it I realized I was in the same disoriented state. This book is very unique, because it is not your normal ghost story. It combines the life stories of people who lived many years ago with a person who lives in today's world. Even if you don't normally read ghost stories (I normally don't), you would probably not be able to put this book down! I definately wasn't able to.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Your Average "Ghost Story", April 7, 2004

By 

North Carolina Reader (Burlington, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Face at the Window (Paperback)

I have to admit that "A Face at the Window" was not at all what I was expecting. I was prepared to read a "cookie cutter" ghost story. I had not read any reviews, having simply picked this book up at a library sale.
The main character Cookson Selway, an early-retired restauranteur and his wife Ellen, who is a fiction writer travel to England after their daughter goes away to boarding school. Note that this novel is written in what I call "Conversation Form", that is to say that it is written as if the central character, "Cook" is talking to the reader. Prior to leaving American, Cook has an unusual experience which reminds him of a somewhat "psychic" ability he had as a child. A self-described ex-addict [drugs, alcohol] Cook has not had these experiences for years, yet after this daughter leaves for school he has an incident and chalks it up to anxiety over the separation. When he and Ellen travel to England and settle in a very old flat, things begin to get very out of control for Cook. He begins to see and hear things that no one else can see. He strikes up an unusual friendship and bond with Paschal, the hotel's young porter and begins to distance himself from his wife. There are some very spooky appearances, which Cook seems to take in stride and embrace in an obsessive manner which creates a terrific strain on his marriage. There is quite a bit of soul-searching by the main character in this novel, therefore creating a story-within-a-story feel to the novel. A final tragedy finally breaks the obsession Cook has with "helping" the apparitions he encounters and the novel resolves from there. There is a bit of back-tracking in the beginning of the novel, which is truly important later in the story, and the conversational writing style takes a few pages to get used to but overall, this is a very interesting novel, not at tall typical of any ghost story I have ever read. It is much more and well worth reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars depressing, January 2, 2006

By 

Static ear (Santa Cruz, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Face at the Window (Paperback)

I picked this up almost randomly at the library. The description was intriguing and I found the first half of the book interesting, but it just went to such a depressing place that I had a hard time finishing the book. The "ghosts" in the story mirror the main character's inner demons which soon completely envelope him in a relentless negative vortex. It's a ride into the psyche of an addict; plenty of self-pity and damage to those around, not much, if anything, positive. Too gloomy for my taste.