Description
Filled With Ghosts is set in Southern Spain, where seven characters’ lives intertwine—the events binding them together are as strong as their need to escape. Diana and Miguel live with their fifteen-year-old daughter, Heena, at his mother’s house. Tila considers her psychotic episodes to be mystical experiences, and becomes obsessed with Heena—convinced she is a magician and guru. Miguel has an affair with wealthy Catalina and, when he gets her pregnant, marries her for her money. He continues his relationship with Diana, dividing his time between the two women. When the violent past catches up with Miguel and Diana, they have to somehow deal with the consequences.
Cathy J. Bryant –
In Spain, a group of people linked by relationships and events narrate a strange series of events in their lives. With violence and lies among them, who can find a way to survive, to live freely and with something approaching integrity or joy?
It’s an ambitious structure, as each character narrates in turn, but Little is equal to this. Diana is lyrical, Miguel blinkered to his own selfishness; but these aren’t one-dimensional people, and there is as much pleasure to be found in the unfolding of their characters as in the plot arc. Some of the sentences are achingly beautiful, peppered with vivid, original images and touches of wit, made all the more evocative by the gritty reality of the setting and circumstances. Whether the character is sculpting, stabbing, hallucinating or cooking, s/he is totally realised and fleshed out, and we are completely in their world as they speak.
About halfway through I wondered if plot was going to be sacrificed to the exquisite prose, but I needn’t have worried. Oh, it’s perfect, just perfect! I will come back to this and read it with pleasure, I know, probably many times. This deserves a big readership and I hope that it gets it. Publishers – can you make the print larger next time, please?
Another pleasure is the art that dances through the volume. Karen Little has many talents, it seems.
Jackie Vincent –
Very well written and thought provoking. Leavi g you wanting more
Jackie Vincent –
Loved reading this book can’t wait for the next one
Jane McCourt –
I love this book. I love it’s meandering between reality, fantasy and poetic abstraction – original insights and observations that are delicious.
An exciting view into a maverick mind