Alan Lightman Ghost

Ghost

Alan Lightman

Pantheon, Oct 2007, $23.00, 256 pp.

ISBN 9780375421693

David was a rising star at the bank where he worked receiving employee awards and verbal kudos until the day came when he was fired for the bank was reorganizing and he was redundant. It took him three months to find another job and that was as a mortuary assistant at a funeral home. One day while in the slumber room alone he sees a ghost and is totally freaked out.

The metaphysical was a myth to David's mathematical mind and as much as he tried to rationalize he knows he saw something that belongs to the supernatural realm. As word leaks as of what he saw, people beg him to get in touch with their loved ones; the Society for the Second World wants to use him as a spokesman to prove that there is a world beyond our own; and a group of college professors want him to say he saw nothing, repudiating what he believes. As David comes to terms with himself, he allows himself to believe in what he saw but wants to be left alone by those who want to use him

The protagonist sees something that shouldn't exist and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Various groups with their own agendas try to push him into believing their way but David proves to himself he is strong enough to listen, evaluate and not be influenced by anyone but himself. Through his ordeal, he also comes to terms with a past he idealized but wasn't what he thought it was. He realizes his mother was always a distant figure and his ex-wife lived in a state of unhappiness. Alan Lightman forces his audience to internalize and ponder the sources of their beliefs.

Harriet Klausner