Ghost Radio: A Novel [Hardcover]

Leopoldo Gout (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2008

Ghost Radio is a terrifying novel about a ghost-story call-in radio show that inadvertently opens a doorway into the paranormal, giving voice to the dead and instigating an epic battle for the souls of the living

From the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories about vampires and poltergeists, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next.

Joaquin, the hip, melancholy host, sits deep in a fog of cigarette smoke, fielding calls from believers and detractors alike. He is joined in the booth by his darkly beautiful girlfriend, Alondra, and his engineer, Watts. Soon what began as an underground cult sensation is primed to break out to mainstream audiences. When a huge radio conglomerate offers to syndicate the show and Ghost Radio becomes a national hit with an expanding legion of hardcore fans, neither Joaquin, Alondra, nor Watts is remotely prepared for what is about to happen.

Though a charismatic host, Joaquin remains a skeptic even as he begins to notice a curious and troubling phenomenon--he feels himself drawn further and further into the terrifying stories he solicits on the radio. Slowly he loses control over his reality and finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio. He is forced to confront his past and his own mortality in order to save that which is most precious to him and repair the crumbling wall between the living and the dead.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Joaquin, the host of Ghost Radio, a call-in show based in Joaquin's native Mexico, builds a devoted audience with his combination of talk therapy and sharing of urban legends and spooky stories in Gout's first novel, a twisty if less than original supernatural thriller. When Joaquin's growing prominence lands him a Newsweek interview, he decides to relate on the air a near-death experience decades earlier, which claimed the life of a close friend. Joaquin's personal problems mount as he begins to be drawn into his callers' stories and the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. The prose can be awkward at times (he wondered how he got himself into this situation: a mysterious phone call, and less than an hour later, he's wrestling with a reverend of Toltec Christianity), and Gout adds little that's either new or remarkable to the ghostly radio waves premise used more effectively elsewhere, notably William Sloane's The Edge of Running Water (1939). (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Gout tells a strange tale of Gabriel and Joaquin, two boys orphaned when their parents' vehicles collide on a Houston road and who become residents at a rehab hospital. Sounds and music fascinate both young men, particularly the Dead Kennedys and fractured pieces of everyday noise. They take to recording and collecting sounds, creating instruments and strange taped commentaries late into the night. One evening they stumble upon an unusual radio program, Ghost Radio, where people call in and retell bizarre and macabre events and stories. The format fascinates them and they set out to duplicate the show. But events take a weird turn—Gabriel dies, and Joaquin wakes to find a mysterious tattoo on his forearm, falls in love, travels back in time, witnesses a murder, experiences flashbacks, and is visited by Gabriel's ghost. All of these curious happenings connect to Joaquin's current radio program's success and its future. Fans of The Twilight Zone will be intrigued with this tale of radio broadcast and its effect and on characters both living and dead.—Joanne Ligamari, Twin Rivers United School District, Sacramento, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061242683
• ISBN-13: 978-0061242687
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Books I've Read This Year, September 27, 2008

By 

paisleymonsoon (Tulsa, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ghost Radio: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Joaquin has had the Dead Kennedys song "Kill The Poor" stuck in his head all week, so when Gabriel starts humming it in the hospital, Joaquin joins in. From that point forward, the boys, whose parents just crashed into each other leaving both boys as orphans, find their lives completely intertwined. They even end up living with relatives in the same neighborhood. They're both intrigued with noise and form a band that takes "found sounds" and arranges them into music.

After Gabriel's death, Joaquin begins to listen even harder to the noises around him, hoping to find a hidden message there from Gabriel. He turns the dials of his radio hoping to pick up a ghostly voice in the static. As a final hope for some contact from the world beyond, Joaquin starts up a radio show similar to one they listened to together in the hospital where they first met, Ghost Radio. He takes calls from people with paranormal stories to tell, but really he hopes beyond hope that perhaps one day Gabriel will call in.

Strangely, the song "Kill the Poor" is a common thread that runs through Joaquin's life from the moment he meets Gabriel: "Efficiency and progress is ours once more now that we have the neutron bomb. It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done. Away with excess enemy, but no less value to property. No sense in war but perfect sense at home." Joaquin starts to feel as if perhaps he is a neutron bomb, bringing death to everyone he loves. The more he thinks of this, the more bizarre his life becomes. He can't tell the difference between life and the lucid dreams he begins to have. But suddenly everything makes sense to him in one lucid moment that determines the future of those he loves.

Leopoldo Gout does a great job of storytelling. I found myself drawn into the story, and I read most of it in one sitting. I looked forward to the few stories of the paranormal that were told over the airwaves of Ghost Radio. Another thing about the book that I really enjoyed is that the author places a photo from Gabriel's "Polaroid journal" at the beginning of each chapter. These "Polaroids" are actually drawn by the author himself and are quite beautiful.

After reading, I found myself chewing over how the various components of the story are intertwined. I enjoyed every moment of reading this novel. However, I'm afraid some might not understand how the book had to end and feel cheated by it. Personally, I can't see how it could have ended otherwise. What a lovely book. I feel like rereading it just to try to tease out all its secrets from the beginning. And, like Joaquin, I'm going to have "Kill the Poor" stuck in my head for a week.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A new voice in horror just in time for Halloween, September 25, 2008

By 

Neal C. Reynolds (Indianapolis, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ghost Radio: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

GHOST RADIO isn't CARRIE, but It's certainly a commendable first novel in the horror genre. One might get wrong impressions from other reviewers. The story is told in the third person at the beginning, but many chapters are written in the first person, mostly from Joaquin's viewpoint and a few from Alondra. However it's not a case of the first half being in the first person and the second half in the third person. Instead the p0erspective switches from time to time throughout the entire novel. At first this can be confusing until you realize the reason for the author doing this. Joaquin experiences periods in which he seems to be in a story he's hearing, and this abrupt switching between the third person and first person reflects the shifting reality he is living in. Joaquin is the protagonist here as the host of a late night call in show, one in which listeners call and tell strange experiences thay have had. Joaquin becomes absorbed in these stories and his own sense of reality is affected. His goth girl friend, Alondra, and sound engineer, Charles Watt (appropriate name there) are the others associated with the program. And then there's Gabriel, Joaquin's friend since a horrific accident in which both lost their parents and himself eventually the victim of a tragic accident. The author skillfully blends these characters in a dreamlike story verging on nightmare.This is a haunting story and expect to hear much more from Leopoldo Gout who even now is working on a collaberation with James Patterson.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ghost Radio left me cold., November 24, 2008

By 

Calico "Dark Eyed Cajun Woman" (Friendswood, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ghost Radio: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I was excited at the prospect of a original ghost story. After all, a ghost in the radio is pretty original - right? I give this a A for orginality but that's all. The book was slow moving and while I was looking for real horror and suspence, I didn't get much of anything. I found this book to be sort of blah. There is a lot of introspection and not enough action. To be honest, I had trouble finishing it.