This week’s new releases feature a couple of supernatural stories sure to scare up some sales, and though I’m not talking about the new Tom Cruise biography, one is a nonfiction title. Jennifer Finney Boylan’s I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted is a memoir about growing up in a spook-filled Pennsylvania mansion known as the "Coffin House." But it’s more than just about bumps in the night. Jenny herself — born James — lived in a "haunted body," and both her mysterious father and her impulsive sister would soon become strangers to Jenny as well. As much as Boylan explores the spirits of the family home with a team of ghostbusters, she re-examines her identity as formed within that house and traces connections with loved ones as they were then and as they’ve now become.
Connections — new connections — form the core of Stephen King’s latest novel, Duma Key, too, after Minnesota construction multimillionaire Edgar Freemantle loses his right arm in a critical work accident, uses some easily-come-by rage on his wife, gets a divorce and gets a new life. His "geographic cure" entails a severe about-face to Duma Key, a scenic slice of eerily undeveloped Florida coast — where Edgar takes up a life of solitude, taking up painting as his considerable artistic talent booms. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, brings him out of his seclusion, however, as does a camaraderie with a kindred spirit named Wireman. Moreover, though, is Edgar’s rapport with Elizabeth Eastlake, an elderly woman with roots deep in Duma Key — she owns all of the land and the few houses, too — whose tragic and mysterious past are only hinted at. But soon the ghosts of Elizabeth's childhood return, and the harm of which they are capable becomes all too clear and all too terrifying.
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