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Ophelia's Ghost

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An extraordinarily intelligent first novel by two accomplished writers, Ophelia's Ghost grabbed my attention from the prologue. Eva, an anthropologist conducting PhD research in the canyon country of the southwest, is missing. Has she been kidnapped? Abducted by intelligent life from another planet? Gone off with a would-be lover? Or, is she simply following her curiosity in a land inhospitable to most but in which she is entirely comfortable? Part fact, part pure fiction, this book is for all readers who are interested in a great story well-told. Joe Hill is not a professional tracker. But when asked by Eva's father, Doc, to look for Eva he can't refuse. The story unwinds in a captivating and easy fashion - we are on the edge of our seats wondering what happened to Eva, but sitting back enjoying the relationship between Joe and his daughter, Nina, and the cast of characters who could be our friends and family and feel that way by the end of the novel. Set in the late 1950s, we are introduced to the ways of the Anasazi as Joe tries to piece together where Eva might have gone, we learn of the United States' Government preoccupation with (and subjugation of information regarding) UFOs, and we see the world and philosophy of Shakespeare through the play Nina is starring in at the culmination of her college career. We are moved to laugh and to cry and, finally, to wonder.

Mystery and mysticism; science vs. superstition. Who - or what - is in control of this fascinating mix? The moon! Which, in its unswerving waxing and waning, has for eons called the shots.

Explanation of such phenomena might verge on the arcane. But in this compelling first novel, Gary Lee Entsminger and Susan Elizabeth Elliott deftly probe ancient cultures (primarily that of the Anasazi who lived in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest) in counterpoint to contemporary scientific studies now underway in the same locale.

Not implausibly, ghosts appear. Are they harbingers of data yet unknown? If Shakespeare's Ophelia had faith in apparitions, why not we?

We are left to ponder.

I loved this book. But a warning if you take this journey, if you follow Ophelia's Ghost with mind and heart: It will not end neatly or simply--nor will you want it to. The journey ever goes on ...

Through the reader's entrance into a linear story, a "simple" search for a missing anthropologist opens up into labyrinths of soul-and-spirit probing venues ... uncovering a memory-evoked trail of human origins, a harking back to points of catastrophic change in directions of human destiny ... a search for the key to how the earth conjoins and mirrors the heavens--and how it all relates to our ability to love and creatively engage in our life here together.

From the book:

"What most people don't understand is that magic is actually about becoming very intimate with nature. Not the supernatural, but the within nature, understanding it. Magic is simply focusing hard enough on something, using our minds, wills, and emotions, to see a pattern. Without the seeing, we'd be wandering fools" (p. 209).

"Other worlds are all around us, close enough that we can touch them, and they can touch us but only when we are open to them ... " (p. 238).

This intelligent and intriguing novel surprises and delights through planting hints/clues from the likes of Shakespeare, Plato, Giordano Bruno, James Joyce, Albert Einstein--and is facilitated by the hermeticist authors' own ability both to celebrate life and to make cosmic connections along the way.

Isabel Anders has co-authored with Diane Marquart Moore the Father Malachi mystery Chant of Death. Isabel is also the author of Becoming Flame; Soul Moments; Awaiting the Child; and 40-Day Journey with Madeleine L'Engle, among other titles.
Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter WisdomChant of Death
She blogs on philosophy for BlogHer.com:
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