A Mild Thrill There's much to like about Mark Marimen's collection of college ghost stories. He presents these traditional stories (no New Age channeling or Satan-Comes-A'Calling claptrap) in a straightforward, fairly objective fashion. One of the blurbs on the rear cover commends the book for NOT being "your campground variety of ghosts stories," but that's basically what this book is...and that's not a bad thing. Where better to sponsor a shiver than around the campfire!
The author does a decent job overcoming the basic weakness of the anthology format. These ghosts have nothing in common except that they appear on college campuses, and these colleges don't have much in common either; obviously Marimen used the two geographical regions simply to garner enough stories for a book. Plus, college students are an excitable bunch on the whole; one can never quite take them seriously in matters of the supernatural. That's why the West Point story was so effective: the witnesses were students, yes, but students being trained to not give in to panic or whimsy.
Somewhat distracting are the several typos (not the author's fault, probably) and the occasional patches of verbosity. For example, "The legends are further enriched by the addition of a rumor that still another young woman is said to have..." (page 3) should be trimmed to simply "Another young woman is rumored to have..." Also, the rather lengthy historical lead-in to the Gettysburg College chapter is unnecessary: most people either know their history or don't much care. Jeb Stuart wouldn't really affect the Kline Hall theater goings-on, would he?
Still, I like a good ghost story as much as the next impressionable middle-aged school teacher. Keep up the good work, Mark.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
