The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story

Author - M.L. Woelm ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Llewellyn Publications was reviewed on 16-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. I picked this up simply because I was looking for a creepy book to read for Halloween, & a friend raved about it. Let´s just say this is the last book recommendation I will ever take from him. A better title for this book would have been "A woman with too much free time & an overactive imagination spends 30 years convincing herself that her house is haunted."
This is the story of a woman who moves into an admittedly badly constructed and poorly maintained house. As you would imagine, there are any number of odd noises that accompany a building such as this. While most rational people would realize this & disregard said noises, the author instead documents each & every one of them, no matter how mundane, as proof positive of paranormal activity. In addition to this, there is also a recurring theme of objects in the house being misplaced, only to turn up later, in one case, directly in front of the author. Again, this isn´t just a case of simple disorganization, or distraction, but rather "ghost(s)" playing games with her. What makes this book all the more frustrating is that when anyone offers a non supernatural explanation, they´re quickly written off as not having an "open mind".
I also found it interesting that the author tells us that during her time in the house, she regularly goes on & off anti-depressants, although she doesn´t feel the need to disclose this to the reader until the last third of the book. Again, we have a rational explanation for her experiences that is just glossed over.
There are of course a few isolated events that don´t involve strange noises, or misplaced items that are scattered throughout the book, but quite honestly, I think they are greatly exaggerated, if they even happened at all.
In short, skip this one. There´s no spookiness, entertainment, or critical thinking to be found here.




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2) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. I love a good ghost story, but it was the subtext to this particular one that kept me fascinated. No, the ´hauntings´ aren´t very dazzling, but if you read it as a study in oppressed emotion being projected on to the house the ´emoter´ lives in, it´s unputdownable. Without once writing it in those terms, you realise the author is a woman furious with the way she´s been treated by friends and family and is unconciously perceiving very normal events as ´para-´. It haunts her ironing board for heaven´s sake.! This would make a great little movie. Anyone interested in female psychology of the mid 20th century should have a read, even if you don´t belive in ghosts per se.¤

3) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. I am in complete agreement with a few others here on the fact that the book is very long winded about things that did not need to be included. I actually skipped many pages toward the end and missed nothing of importance. My own personal opinion is that the author started out in the book with an actual true story of the child that died and that he was possibly still lingering in his old home. She took this story as far truthfully as she could then just started to take things that probably had a perfectly rational explanation to them and just blew them way out of proportion. I also had a hard time with the authors personality while reading this book. I mean this is supposedly a mother, a good mother, and yet she has a very crass and uncaring way of speaking about what is supposedly the spirit of a little boy. My heart was breaking for this little boy and his family. This part of the story just drops off about midway through the book and she never talks anymore about it. Then there are just day after day of items being moved, feelings of being watched etc. This in between her constant talk about her husband and how he is not supportive of her and doesn´t believe her. Other than that there are some good points to this book and I did enjoy the story told whether true or not. Decide for yourself.¤

4) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. How seldom does one find a book like this! This is my favorite of all the personal hauntings that have hit the bookshelves in the past two years.

What makes this book intriguing is:
1) The haunting went on for decades.
2) The author chronicles her personal struggle in learning to live with the haunting when no one else would believe her.
3) The ordinary life she describes interspersed with her nights of terror are very thought provoking--what would you do if faced with the same events?

The author struggles with fear of the unknown, personal rejection and nights filled with terror. These events move her from being a shy wife and mother of the 1960´s into a woman of the 1990´s that accepts the ghosts in her home and is finally vindicated when other family members finally confess thier own encounters.

This intimate sharing really touched my heart since that is much of my own experience with a haunting.

Definitely a great read! Almost 300 pages.¤

5) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. If you have a passion for true-life ghost stories (as I do), I highly recommend this book. The author has a tale of a 30+ years haunting to tell that is truly creepy. And she tells it in most readable style. She has an engaging, self-aware, humorous writing style that really draws the reader into her both head and into her emotions, which makes the events she recounts seem very immediate even though some of them happened a long time ago.

In recent years, I´ve read many books like this one (many self-published; this one is not, and it shows), and the vast majority of them are frustrating reads, not only because they are often poorly written and loaded with grammatical and typographical errors, but because they provide minimal details/history about the victims of the hauntings under discussion. But I´m always curious (okay, nosy) about the back stories of the people involved in these hauntings, so I really appreciated the depth with which the author treated her family interactions regarding the hauntings, especially her husband´s stubborn silence.

I also appreciated that this was a real BOOK -- not just a sliver of a book with wide margins and huge type, as so many of these types of books are -- and that it didn´t stint on describing even repetitive events, because the author´s response to these wasn´t always the same as the years progressed.

After finishing the book, I did still have some questions (for instance, did her husband stop working nights in 1980 or 1982? She cited both years for that -- and what happened to her cat, Murray?), So I do think this book would have benefited from more careful editing. But that is just a minor complaint. Overall, this book is well worth reading.¤

6) Paperback Book The Ghosts on 87th Lane: A True Story by Llewellyn Publications. Once upon a time, my house was haunted. It still is. I began recording my experiences, hoping to one day share them. I kept waiting for the incidents to stop, so I´d have a logical conclusion to my book. So far, that hasn´t happened. It may never happen. I´d like to get my story told before I become a ghost myself.

The True Story of a Haunting
Beginning in 1968 and spanning four decades, this true story chronicles the hair-raising experiences that nearly drove an ordinary housewife and mother to the breaking point.

Not every haunted house is an old Victorian mansion, as the author and her family discovered when they bought a modest house in the suburbs. Even a post-war starter home can be a dwelling place for earthbound spirits—especially if it holds a tragic secret from the past. Eerie feelings of being watched, disembodied sobs, mysterious scratches appearing on her throat, and a child´s voice crying, "Mommy!" convinced M. L. Woelm that she was sharing her home with ghosts. This is her story.
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Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 13-Nov-2008, 07387103189780738710310, 830-750-180-361-801-221-8

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