American Ghost

Starred review from December 8, 2014
Journalist Nordhaus (The Beekeeper’s Lament) embarks on a “ghost hunt” for her great-great-grandmother, German immigrant Julia Schuster Staab, in this unique collision of family history, Wild West adventure, and ghost story. Since the 1970s, the grand La Posada hotel in Santa Fe has been subject to sightings of a ghost resembling Julia, who lived there with her husband, Abraham, and their seven children in the late 19th century. Nordhaus, who comes from a long line of skeptics, decides to investigate these rumors. She consults a variety of self-appointed supernatural experts—psychics, tarot-card readers, mediums, and dowsers—as well as more traditional sources such as newspaper archives, family diaries, and aging relatives. She also visits the settings of her grandmother’s life, from villages in Germany to the deserts of New Mexico where the Staabs lived alongside “Spanish settlers and Pueblo Indians... Navajos, Apaches, freed slaves, soldiers... cowboys, dry-land farmers... land-grabbers, miners, and shysters.” In the process, Nordhaus uncovers a strain of mental illness that runs through one branch of her family, delves into the lore of the 19th-century spiritualist movement, and discovers how a true-life story can become a paranormal one. Perceptive, witty, and engaging, Nordhaus observes that “it’s not so much the ghost that keeps the dead alive... as it is the story.”

January 1, 2015

Nordhaus follows her successful The Beekeeper's Lament with the astonishing story of her great-great-grandmother Julia Schuster Staab, who traveled from Germany in 1866 to New Mexico and eventually into the stuff of legend as the troubled ghost that haunts the La Posada Hotel of Santa Fe. Julia is New Mexico's most famous apparition and, were it not for those stories, Nordhaus would probably never have written this book. The author's multifaceted work brings Julia back to life and explores the journey it took to rediscover her narrative. The book's many elements could appeal to a variety of readers, as there are mentions of discovering genealogical origins, insight into Jewish immigration to the United States, the life of a pioneer woman in the Wild West, and finally how someone's ghost becomes a legend. Every aspect of the account is enlightening, well written, and entertaining, from the sojourn to Germany to trace her roots to talking to psychics about the ghostly Julia, and finally Julia herself, who ended up changing and inspiring the author. VERDICT This touching and uplifting work is highly recommended and will appeal to a variety of readers.--Mary E. Jones, Los Angeles P.L., CA

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