Madeleine's Ghost [Paperback]

Robert Girardi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1996

Brooklyn needs a saint. Ned Conti needs a stipend. So the struggling young historian agrees to trace the mysterious past of a Brooklyn nun for evidence of miracles. Trapped in a neighborhood of cheap rents and failed promise, in a rent-controlled apartment suddenly, inexplicably seized by a beautiful and angry ghost, Ned's only refuge is the F train to Manhattan's East Village bars, where he and his friends drown their sorrows in drink....

But Ned is about to heed another call, the siren song of New Orleans, where the history of countless lost souls seems to rise from the steaming streets—and where, ten years before, he ended a brief, passionate affair with a woman whose memory has haunted him ever since. Here, in a city of spirits, Ned will embrace a dead saint and a living sinner...as a beautiful ghost offers him her desire. And his destiny....

Set amid the sleepless energy and seething passion of New York and New Orleans, Madeleine's Ghost is a spellbinding novel of lost love, history, and desire—a work of startling originality that is at once exquisitely written and compulsively readable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a first novel of astonishing accomplishment, Girardi by turns portrays spooks, erotic love, muggers, Romanian mediums and the Catholic church with startlingly few slips and a shimmering style. A first-person account by Ned Conti, a graduate student in French history deeply involved in not writing his dissertation, the novel moves between New York and New Orleans, past and present, this side and "the other side" of death. Ned is languishing in a dangerous Brooklyn neighborhood, in an apartment haunted by an aggressive ghost (whose tricks include dropping stones from the ceiling) when, broke, he starts work as a researcher for a local Catholic priest who is hoping to spur the canonization of a 19th-century American nun. Soon, the forces of spirituality and history converge on Ned until he is almost painfully overburdened with mystery. When the suicide of a close friend pushes him to visit Antoinette, his Creole ex-girlfriend in Louisiana, Ned begins to sense that a New Orleans plantation family may hold a clue to his researches. The connections among ghost, saint and Antoinette, are wrapped up a bit too tidily, but Girardi drives his tale along with sensuous prose. The resonance with which he captures the gritty material world of New Orleans and the East Village provides a sturdy, credible spine on which to hang Ned's clash with the strange world of spirits.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Ned Conti is a New Orleans graduate student in history whose dissertation and love affair have both stalled. Hoping to resume the former and escape the latter, Conti moves to New York City and accepts a job documenting the life and works of a candidate for Catholic sainthood. That work is soon derailed by a presence haunting his apartment. This first novel switches seamlessly from past to present, from humid New Orleans to gritty New York as Conti's life is quickly consumed by forces he cannot control. First novelist Girardi has fashioned a modern ghost story that eschews graphic violence for mood, fascinating characters, and a story that opens strong and keeps building. Buy wherever good fiction is read.
-?A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Delta; Reprint edition (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385316364
• ISBN-13: 978-0385316361
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #532,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ROBERT GIRARDI is the author of five nov­els and one volume of novellas. His short fic­tion has been pub­lished in Tri-Quarterly and Vir­ginia Lit­er­ary Review, and his non-fiction has appeared in The New Repub­lic, Washingtonian Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and The Wash­ing­ton Post. His novels have been translated into nine languages--including Hebrew and Estonian. He lives in Wash­ing­ton, DC with his three children. He sells tickets at a movie theater in Bethesda, Maryland, and works as sexton of Our Lady of Victory Church in Washington, DC. (Visit him on the web at girardilit.com : email at [e-mail].)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Read It!!, April 27, 2001

By 

Sawbuck "Sawbuck" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madeleine's Ghost (Paperback)

I have no idea what book the negative reviewers were reading - but my well-worn copy, and much gifted copies to friends was and remains a wonderful, powerful read. The book is much deeper than you think - yes it is a love story, a ghost story, a history, a mystery and God forbid, even a happy ending for the troubled souls in the book, and the audience. As a person who is haunted by places at times, the book evokes that sense of lost time wonderfully - and Ned Conti is proof that persistence is key, although good fortune, even in small amounts never hurts. This is a wonderful book. Read it and enjoy the trip. I have given away 10 copies, and everyone loved it. Who you going to believe?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally something worth reading!, September 30, 2002

By 

DeeDee "crazygirl" (Midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madeleine's Ghost (Paperback)

I knew from Paragraph 1 that Madeleine's Ghost would be a winner. The haunting in his apartment, his relationship with his neighbors, friends and the priest, and the uncertain life of living in New York (with the low rent, projects and bodies) all work together to make this an excellent novel. Ned Conti seems to be hovering on the line between skepticism and faith. He and his friends, Chase, Jillian, Molesworth, are ever so alive in the story. Parts of the book made me laugh out loud and other parts made me think. It's also nice to read a novel where the main character hasn't shed his religious faith, either. The story kept going at an even pace and was well put-together. Very entertaining.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Cheesy Spooks In White Sheets Here!!!, May 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Madeleine's Ghost (Paperback)

A very classy debut novel from Robert Girardi. My friend loaned me a copy for my vacation and I was completely engrossed from start to finish. Travelling back and forth in time to the very different cities of New York and New Orleans, the story revolves around Ned Conti, a thirtysomething who lacks direction in his life and the paranormal events that occur in his apartment during one hot summer in New York. Wonderfully atmospheric descriptions of Conti's gritty existence in New York and the seedy side of 19th Century New Orleans. Amazing - I haven't read such a good ghost story since Susan Hill's "The Woman In Black".