A Manhattan Ghost Story [Paperback]

T. M. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1994

A photographer borrows his friend's New York apartment and is introduced to Manhattan's spectral underworld by a beautiful woman ghost, with whom he falls in love. Reissue. Movie tie-in.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, T. M. Wright earned praise from critics for a series of ghost novels about isolated houses in upstate New York. A Manhattan Ghost Story, first published in 1984, moved the action to New York City. And the tale is not about a single building, but about an all-pervasive layer of reality in which the shades of the living mark their days in a listless state, until finally they fall apart. A commercial photographer gets slowly pulled, while still living, over to the "other side"--a plight that leads to a profoundly unsettling and surreal chain of events. "And if you get stuck in that other city, that other Manhattan, you find yourself getting awfully desperate and mean-spirited, the way some people are affected by too much heat or the crying of small children."

Wright's ghosts are evocatively described, with their awkward movements and stares of "quiet, studied indifference." But be forewarned that A Manhattan Ghost Story, while justly celebrated, has a couple of minor flaws: a weak love story and slipshod editing that didn't catch place names that change partway through. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"T M Wright is a rare and blazing talent." Stephen King
"Wright convincingly proves that he understands, as few do, how to give
a scare without spilling blood all over the page." Publishers Weekly
"T M Wright is the best ghost story writer alive today." American Fantasy Magazine
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Tor Books (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081252750X
• ISBN-13: 978-0812527506
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,778,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Redefining the Traditional Ghost Story Single-handedly!, December 1, 2000

By 

Zulfiqar Ali (Birmingham United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Manhattan Ghost Story (Mass Market Paperback)

Not since M R James, I think, has there been a writer who has made the ghost story his own in quite the same way T M Wright has done. He has taken all the elements of the traditional ghost story and brought them up to date in spectacular fashion. AMGS is a prime example, a towering achievement by a master craftsman in complete control of his subject and command of the English language. Wright's ghosts are not the chain-dragging, sheet-drapped shades; his ghosts are very much "alive", if one may use such a term, in that they are active participants in moving the story along, not mere cyphers used for plot-purposes. AMGS is more than just a superb ghost story with a terrifying mystery at its heart. It is also a story of the contemporary world, not the Victorian one of hansome cabs and gaslit streets - of modern relationships, isolation and breakdown, friendship, trust and betrayal, and an achingly sad and tragic love story. And, of course, children. Children figure VERY large in Wright's books, whether as ghosts (LITTLE BOY LOST) or as other-wordly, almost malevolent forces of (seeming) evil (STRANGE SEED, NURSERY TALE, ERTHMUN). What sets Wright apart from others working in this field is his seeming compassion, his humanity, his understanding of people's psychology and the dark forces that jerk us about like marionettes. The only reason I can think of why he is not a household name and on the best-seller lists (when so many talent-free "authors", who could not write themselves out of a shopping bag, are) is because he does not write for the MTV generation that has grown up on a staple diet of slasher movies and has the attention span of a... goldfish. If you enjoy the tales of someone like, say, Richard Laymon, you would be utterly baffled by Wright's work. But if you like the stories of people like Thomas Ligotti, T.E.D. Kline or Russell Kirk, and want to read quality fiction that does more than merely entertain you for a few hours (not necessarily a bad thing, of course), you could do infinitely worse than pick up one of Wright's books such as AMGS or its equally fabulous sequel THE WAITING ROOM. Wright is, after all, one of Stephen King's favourite authors. Need I say more? My one regret is that he is not very prolific!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-written, but loses it at the end, April 14, 2004

By 

Blake Petit "Novelist, columnist & reviewer" (Ama, Louisiana United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Manhattan Ghost Story (Mass Market Paperback)

I very much enjoyed "A Manhattan Ghost Story" from the very first page. It was around page 300 that it began to lose me. The story focuses on Abner Cray, a photographer that comes to New York City to work on a book and winds up falling in love with a woman he meets in the apartment he is subletting from a friend. As he wanders the city he finds unusual things from out of a nightmare, and begins to learn that his new love may not be what he thinks.

Wright has a wonderful, engaging style of writing, the sort of style that reads quickly and keeps you turning the page to see what happens next. The problem is that you still feel that way after the last page. There's no sense of conclusion to the book. You don't get a feeling of resolution for Abner, you only get a hint of resolution for Art, and subplots about the deaths of his parents, estrangement from his family and a superfluous subplot about an incestuous relationship with his cousin never go anywhere at all. At the ending you get a feeling that the writer intended the book to have an unresolved feeling, implying that's how life (and death) is, but instead I was just left unsatisfied.

Wright's style is good enough to make me interested in reading some of his other works (this is the first book of his I've read), but if the second one doesn't give me a more fulfilling read than this, there probably won't be a third.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Redefining the Traditional Ghost Story Single-handedly!, December 1, 2000

By 

Zulfiqar Ali (Birmingham United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Manhattan Ghost Story (Mass Market Paperback)

Not since M R James, I think, has there been a writer who has made the ghost story his own in quite the same way T M Wright has done. He has taken all the elements of the traditional ghost story and brought them up to date in spectacular fashion. AMGS is a prime example, a towering achievement by a master craftsman in complete control of his subject and command of the English language. Wright's ghosts are not the chain-dragging, sheet-drapped shades; his ghosts are very much "alive", if one may use such a term, in that they are active participants in moving the story along, not mere cyphers used for plot-purposes. AMGS is more than just a superb ghost story with a terrifying mystery at its heart. It is also a story of the contemporary world, not the Victorian one of hansome cabs and gaslit streets - of modern relationships, isolation and breakdown, friendship, trust and betrayal, and an achingly sad and tragic love story. And, of course, children. Children figure VERY large in Wright's books, whether as ghosts (LITTLE BOY LOST) or as other-wordly, almost malevolent forces of (seeming) evil (STRANGE SEED, NURSERY TALE, ERTHMUN). What sets Wright apart from others working in this field is his seeming compassion, his humanity, his understanding of people's psychology and the dark forces that jerk us about like marionettes. The only reason I can think of why he is not a household name and on the best-seller lists (when so many talent-free "authors", who could not write themselves out of a shopping bag, are) is because he does not write for the MTV generation that has grown up on a staple diet of slasher movies and has the attention span of a retarded goldfish. If you enjoy the tales of someone like, say, Richard Laymon, you would be utterly baffled by Wright's work. But if you like the stories of people like Thomas Ligotti, T.E.D. Kline or Russell Kirk, and want to read quality fiction that does more than merely entertain you for a few hours (not necessarily a bad thing, of course), you could do infinitely worse than pick up one of Wright's books such as AMGS or its equally fabulous sequel THE WAITING ROOM. Wright is, after all, one of Stephen King's favourite authors. Need I say more? My one regret is that he is not very prolific!