Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina [Hardcover]

Randy Russell (Author), Janet Barnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1988

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 109 pages
• Publisher: John F Blair Pub (August 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895870649
• ISBN-13: 978-0895870643
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,053,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Randy Russell has believed in ghosts since having to take the trash out at night when he was 12 and being chased back to the house by "something" in the darkness.

The Edgar-nominated author of five published novels for adults, two books of short stories about ghosts, and two volumes of Southern Appalachia folklore, Randy's first paranormal novel, Dead Rules , will be released in hardcover by HarperTeen on June 21, 2011.

Randy is an academically trained folklorist who has collected hundreds of first-person accounts of ghost experiences from across the South. He presents regularly on "True Ghost Stories of the South" based on his interviews of people who have encountered ghosts.

" I know what a ghost encounter is like for the people who have experienced them," Randy said in a recent interview. "But I have always wondered what the experience is like for the ghost and what it is like to be a ghost.

"By far, the most common ghost a person is likely to encounter is that of a loved one. Love is the binding element, in the main, that keeps a person hanging around after death. I wrote Dead Rules so I could learn what being a ghost might be like. I set it in a high school for the dead, because high school is when most of us are learning what love is... what it can be... and what it isn't. It seems so unfair to die in high school."

"I write ghosts and dead people," Randy said, "but my overriding concern in fiction is coming to an understanding of love. I figure each of us will fully understand what love is about 100 years after we're dead. In that case, ghosts know. And I want to know what they know. "

Randy lives outside Asheville, North Carolina, near the end of a shady mountain cove road marked by a sign that reads "No Exit." Randy thinks this means he will live forever.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I Don't See Dead People, June 6, 2002

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina (Hardcover)

Frankly, I was somewhat disappointed by this book. I picked it up because I am interested in ghosts and because I live just east of the foothills in western North Carolina. I had also enjoyed reading the authors' book Ghost Dogs of the South. Despite the title of this book, the vast majority of the stories collected here have nothing to do with ghosts, and no story deals with a traditional type of haunting. What these stories do contain are tidbits of mountain folklore, local history, and Indian traditions and beliefs. The book is not bad in and of itself; the problem is that this reader was expecting something quite different from what he found. Peculiarities of the mountain environment are the catalysts for many of these tales, and I believe that readers unfamiliar with the North Carolina mountains will probably be more disappointed than I was. You don't need to have visited Clingman's Dome, Blowing Rock, or Grandfather Mountain to enjoy these tales, but having some personal knowledge of the area is certainly a plus for the reader.

Mountain Ghost Stories is a pretty short book, coming in at just over 100 pages. I would have loved to see pictures of some of the locations mentioned, but there are none. If you are interested in mountain folklore, Indian myths/traditions, or North Carolina history, you might find a quick wade in this pool enjoyable. If you are looking for traditional ghost stories, you would do well to bypass this little book altogether.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Barely a ghost to be found., May 12, 2004

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina (Hardcover)

There are many titles that would have been appropriate for this book but the one chosen by the authors is not one of them. Picking up this book one expects to find an abundance of ghost stories within it's pages but if that is your expectation, you will be disappointed. There are only two stories in this book that deal in any way with ghosts and one of those is the Brown Mountain lights which show up in almost any ghost book dealing at all with Western North Carolina. The rest of the book is just one old legend after another.

Don't get me wrong, some of these legends are intriguing and enjoyable. I especially enjoyed the story of Spearfinger. The writing is good and flows nicely and I ran into no editing problems. Still, this book purports to be a book of ghost stories and that is what I bought it for. A much more appropriate title would have been "Cherokee Legends of Western North Carolina" or something like that. One story doesn't even bother to deal with a legend. It is just the story of a scalawag bushwhacker that people still remember and detest.

Those who like to read about the legends and gods of the Cherokee Nation will generally enjoy this book. Do not bother with it however if you are looking for haunts and spooks for there are none to be found here. If I were a lawyer with too much time on my hands I might file a false advertising suit on this one.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Want To Go There, March 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina (Hardcover)

Things that go bump in the mountains at night are things that growl and bite! The best sense of setting in a folklore book that I have ever read. Makes the mounatins of North Carolina seem like the only place in America you want to visit on your next vacation. The story of the Spearfinger Witch alone is worth the price of this well-researched book by a husband and wife who spent their honeymoon kicking around the N.C. hills, listening to ghost stories as they are still told today. Terrific fun.