Customer Reviews

Ghosts of Southern Tier, NY

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I grew up in New York's Southern Tier. I've also met the author, a very friendly man with the best of intentions, so I was predisposed to like this book. I didn't. Dwayne Claud, a self-professed ghost hunter and demonologist, displays some solid storytelling instincts and an obvious enthusiasm for his subject matter. His writing skills, however, are deplorable. I've listed a few representative blunders below.

Grammatical errors:
Page 102: "The real estate agent explained that her and her husband thought that it was best."
Page 128: "Her and her pets would then vanish into the darkness."
Page 143: "...the smell might have been coming from the room below their's..."

Repetition:
Page 51: "...strange occurrences started to occur..."
Page 87: In the six sentences comprising the third paragraph, the verb "begin" is used five times.
Page 92: Of the six sentences that make up the first paragraph, four start with "there have been" or "there are."

Awkward sentences:
Page 104: "They said they did not have the proper tools to open it, when O'Connor said she may have a screw driver in the trunk of her car, they requested that they leave the door be."
Page 118: "One of the current owners of the property shared that as he and his two sons were driving down one of the dirt roads on the property and they happened across the figure of a woman sitting in a rocking chair."
Page 139: "In its completion, the Roberson Mansion gleamed the vestige of those who lived within it."

Factual errors and misspellings:
Page 37: Cassadaga Lake is repeatedly referred to as "Cassadagua Lake," even in the story's title.
Page 54: Guernsey Hollow Cemetery in Frewsburg is identified as "Gurnsey Hallow Cemetery" in "Frewsberg" in the story's title and throughout the story itself.
Page 59: "...Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hallow..."
Page 106: "...Army Core of Engineers..."
Page 111: "...a mammoth that roamed much of New York State during the Mestrodon age..." (I think he means "mastodon" here, but that wasn't an age. It was an animal that lived during the Pleistocene.)

On page 79, he actually begins a story with the cliché "...it was a dark and stormy night..."

Another story, "Private Corning Residence" on page 120, is nothing more than a scene-for-scene rehash of an episode of the Discovery Channel series A Haunting.

I wish I could say that these were isolated mistakes - the fault of a careless editor - but they're not. Misspellings, grammatical errors, run-on sentences, clichés, clumsy transitions, repetitious paragraphs, and factual inaccuracies occur on nearly every page. The result is largely unreadable. I'm shocked that this book found its way into print.

The claim that Mr. Claud is "an accomplished author" (inside cover) is perhaps the most glaring error of them all.

I just bought this book yesterday and I couldn't stop reading it last night. I live in the Southern Tier of New York and there where some legends and ghost stories I have never heard of or just once in this book. I really enjoyed reading this for not just the stories but for the information behind the legends of the people and history. I find it very interesting that there's a list of local ghost hunting groups for the area and contact info if you want to get a hold of them. Plus the list of ghost hunting tools is a nice add on.
All around this is a great easy read. A wonderful picture of a haunted piece of New York.