THE GHOST IN LOVE

author:
JONATHAN CARROLL

Fiction
320 pages
Tor Books

According to Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” And though it’s highly unlikely that author Jonathan Carroll would tackle the latter in one of his novels, he does seem to have a preoccupation with the former. Many of his long-form works deal explicitly with death, but it is in The Ghost in Love, Carroll’s 17th book, that the concept of death itself is turned on its head.

Right off the bat, Carroll does something remarkable in making us care about a protagonist who is a complete dick, and care enough to keep following him through to the end. Ben Gould slips on some ice, hits his head, and is supposed to die, but doesn’t; more weirdness follows, leading to a breakup with his girlfriend. Ben’s ghost, who is supposed to escort him to the afterlife and clean up any unfinished business, must stick around to see what happens next. Ben’s ex-girlfriend, German Landis, keeps coming back into his life, caught up in the side effects of his non-death (including meeting her past selves). Ben’s dog Pilot has the ability to talk (a favorite trope of Carroll’s). The Angel of Death is a plate of runny eggs.

Carroll is at his best when letting his characters experience the weirdness of his books and try to figure out just what the hell is going on. He’s less successful when imparting the truths of the universe directly to the reader, using the voice of the author rather than the erudition of his characters; these moments (that fit in better on his remarkable blog than in the Kunderian intrusions of his fiction) tend to throw the reader out of the narrative with their insistence that you pay attention to how clever they are, but thankfully these moments are not enough to derail the quite ingenious premise. In the end, Carroll’s flawed and very human characters drive the events of the story and make the reader wish they actually existed, for their lives are smarter, sexier, stranger, and more interesting than we may ever know.

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