Customer Reviews

Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting in the Hudson Valley

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For centuries (and obviously also before the first European immigrants arrived) Hudson Valley has been known for its splendid nature, and people started settling there quite early in American history. However, these are not the only reasons it's famous. It's only a very haunted area. Numerous ghost stories appear in local folklore, and over the years a very large number of people have been prepared to testify under oath that they've come face to face with all different kinds of ghosts.

The same stories - or at least different variations of a story - have returned from time to time during different eras, and why is that? How come a ghost story is brought up to begin with? And to what extent will local folklore - and history - affect the evolution of a ghost story? These questions, and many others, Judith Richardson attempts to answer in Possessions. It's not a book where the author tries to explain what ghosts actually are, if they really exist or not, if there's life after death, and so on.

No, instead Richardson's methodology is using folklore and history, and instead of discussing whether ghosts are real or not she devotes much time and energy offering a historical survey of the area, its people, and evolution.

It really must be said that honestly, Richardson is a very skilled researcher. Every chapter and angle of approach is extremely thorough, and every single page is filled to the brim with copious footnotes, which in turn offer tons and tons of other sources for anyone interested in doing some research of his or her own. Out of the book's 296 pages, 209 make up the main text, while pages 211-286 are footnotes only. In other words, you won't find much reason to complain about lack of source material and references when it comes to Possessions.

But who, then, will do some of this independent research that the book can be helpful with? Well, one thing is for sure, it's not going to be me.

And this despite her excellent research and easy to understand and well-reasoned text. Why, you say? Because quite frankly, I found the book to be extremely boring, drawn-out, long-winded, and overall uninteresting. Sure, the topic is definitely worth examining and Richardson's book can without a doubt be interesting to some, but absolutely not to me.

I'm not American, and that's probably one of the main reasons to why I didn't find it interesting whatsoever. The main reason, though, has to do with the way the ghost stories are presented. In most cases they are put in contrast to the very specific history of the area, and this makes the book more interesting to people that focus on folklore and history compared to ghostbusters and people who simply want to know more about the phenomenon of ghosts in general. I belong to the latter category, and thus this book wasn't for me.

Still I cannot say it's a bad book, because it isn't; this time it just happened to come into the wrong hands.

Possessions is engrossing for all those seeking sources for the spirits abounding in the Hudson Valley. People generally bother only with a headless horseman or a man wearing a silken noose for the story. But, if you want to know where the horseman rides and what's behind all the haunting in this region, turn to Richardson's book.

Granted, this is scholarship. Compared to most academic writings, however, the thorough research here inspires you to read on knowing, this is an authoritative voice on Hudson Valley history. Richardson backs up every utterance with evidence. She covers all the writers from Washington Irving to T.C. Boyle. She notes the region's rapid changes, from Native to Dutch to British to American, to industrial to suburban all create a forgetful dreamy atmosphere where ghosts to thrive.

A devoted student of the Hudson Valley, and a professional storyteller, I find people want to know, where do all these ghosts come from. Possessions gives you answers!

As an exile from the Hudson Valley, I much appreciate this book for its scholarship and its grounding in the felt reality of the place. I better understand why the stories I read and heard in the Valley as a child mean so much to me as a transplant living in California. The author ranges over the tellings and retellings of various ghostly hauntings so that I better understand what previous residents thought of the major events of their time, from wars to slavery to immigration. Yes, it is a scholarly work (that Harvard published it makes that obvious) but if you want to understand why people tell ghost stories, read it.

Clearly, reviewers listed here of this scholarly work are ill-prepared to evaluate Richardson's Possessions. It reads as a scholarly work because IT IS one! The author teases apart the multiple layers of history recorded in ghostly stories of the Hudson Valley. She is looking at the power of place and how some stories of the past - particularly those of underrepresented groups - get lost but found in haunted tales preserved about the landscape. This is an important book for scholars interested in exploring alternative views of history and/or pursuing Spectral Studies. I loved this book and use it often in my work.

I was given this book as a gift, and was intrigued because I live in the Hudson Valley. All I can say is that I could not drag myself through this book. It is *not* lively; it is much too scholarly for what this book is trying to be.