National Book Award finalist Howard Norman delivers another "provocative ... haunting"* novel, this time set in a Vermont village and featuring a missing child, a newly married private detective, and a highly relatable ghost.
*Janet Maslin,
New York Times
Simon Inescort is no longer bodily present in his marriage. It's been several months since he keeled over the rail of a Nova Scotia-bound ferry, amassive heart attack to blame.Simon's widow, Lorca Pell, has sold their farmhouse to newlyweds Zachary and Muriel-after revealingthat the deed contains a "ghost clause," an actual legal clause, not unheard of in Vermont, allowing for reimbursement if arecently purchased home turns out to be haunted.
In fact, Simonfinds himself still at home: "Every waking moment, I'm astonished I have any consciousness . . . What am I to call myself now, a revenant?" He spendstime replaying his marriagein his own mind,as if in poignant reel-to-reel, while alsoengaging in occasionally intimateobservation of the new homeowners. But soonthe crisis of a missing child, a local eleven-year-old, threatensthetenuous domesticequilibrium, as theweight of the case falls to Zachary, arookie private detective with the Green Mountain Agency.
The Ghost Clause is a heartrending, affirmingportrait of two marriages-one in its afterlife, one new and erotically charged-and of the Vermont village life that sustains and remakes them.
