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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pardon Me Boys, Is That The Chattanooga Spook-Spook?, July 2, 2006
This review is from: Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley (Paperback)
As I started to read this book my hopes were high because the Chattanooga area has never been properly served with this type of book. With several major Civil War battles having been fought in the area there have to be ghosts lurking around and it is about time someone told their stories. Georgiana Kotarski has thankfully taken up the challenge and has put together the first ghost book that I know of to deal specifically with this area. The wait is finally over.
My high hopes were almost dashed from the very beginning however because the first story dealt far more with local legend than with ghosts. These kinds of stories are good for local flavor but do not add a thing to a good ghost book and should never be included in this type of collection. Fortunately however, after the first chapter the book really took off and was extremely enjoyable. The author did get a little carried away with the history of the haunted location a few times but otherwise the rest of the stories were excellent.
Most of the chapters were stories of recent encounters with the lost souls of the area and best of all there were numerous eyewitness accounts. There is no way to overstate just how important these recent firsthand accounts are to this type of book and this author has included an abundance of such material. In one case she interviewed a family of four that resided in a haunted house and therefore had the perspective of each family member, all of whom had experienced the haunt in one form or another.
As one would expect there are several stories of Civil War ghosts, including one Union soldier who is still mad because a little old lady pushed him down her stairs, but there are many other types of haunts that are also documented. The writing style is very fluid and regardless of the subject matter this is a very fun read. It is even more fun if one is a fan of ghost books and I certainly fall into that category. With the exception of the first chapter this is as good as ghost books get.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Ghost Stories!, July 30, 2006
This review is from: Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley (Paperback)
This book does a very good job of capturing the history behind these ghost stories. Georgiana Kotarski not only tells the stories but also places them within their historical and cultural context by telling us about the settings, people, and eyewitnesses surrounding these ghost stories. She presents some of the most interesting ghost stories I have read in a long time. These stories are not only well researched but fun to read, especially for anyone who has ever lived or traveled through the haunts she describes. Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley is a great read!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haint necessarily so, January 21, 2007
This review is from: Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley (Paperback)
"Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley" is light reading, serious neither as history nor as spectral "science." This is not a bad thing.
"This collection leans heavily toward local history," writes Georgiana Kotarski, who leaves open whether she believes in ghosts and haints. As such, it leans heavily on old newspaper accounts, although she also interviewed people who believe or suspect they have encountered ghosts in their homes or, in many cases, around locales of the Civil War battles of Chattanooga and Chickamauga.
My family settled in the "southern Tennessee valley," as Kotarski calls it, in the 1880s and did not tell ghost stories. Although one of the ghosts here, Oscar Carlson, was murdered just a hop and a step from where my mother grew up, she tells me she never heard that he haunted her part of Signal Mountain. It makes a good story, though.
Most of the ghosts are benevolent or just wistful. Only one or two allegedly tried to harm or frighten the people who encountered them. These are not particularly scary ghosts.
All in all an amusing excursion into local history, or a part of it. Although some of the ghosts here were black, all of the relaters appear to be whites.
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