A Haunted History of Invisible Women Review and Giveaway

A wispy woman in white, a widow who haunts the home she once ruled over, a fair maiden whose life was tragically cut short—have you ever noticed how many of the ghost stories of popular culture and local legend feature female spirits? Brilliant and knowledgeable ghost tour guides Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes—whom I have taken many tours of NYC with through Boroughs of the Dead—explore this phenomenon and its significance in their first nonfiction book, A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts, which came out back in September. Through a blend of personal, professional, and academic lenses, Leanna and Adrea provide a cultural analysis of the ghostly women that populate American legends and what their stories can tell us about ourselves and about American society. As a lover of ghost stories who also loves to examine why and how we tell them, I cannot recommend this book enough! In my excitement to preorder the book, I wound up with more copies than I need, so I’ll be giving away one of my extras. Read to the bottom of this post for information on how to enter to win a signed copy of A Haunted History of Invisible Women!

In A Haunted History of Invisible Women, Leanna and Andrea don’t merely collect ghost stories—they study these stories, critique them, fit them into a wider cultural context, and discuss what we can learn from them. Each coauthor has her own introduction to the book. In Andrea’s introduction, titled “Women, Death, and Ghosts,” she lays out the book’s premise: “Women are profoundly entwined with ghosts and ghost stories”—there’s some intrinsic link between women and ghosts in folklore, literature, religion, history, and in daily life. In Leanna’s introduction, “Existential Questions,” she discusses how “one’s relationship to the spirit world, like religion and identity, is fundamentally personal and contains multitudes.” The rest of the book is organized into sections based on character tropes that the women in these ghost stories tend to fall into, from mothers and wives to “witches” and “madwomen.” Each section has its own introduction followed by three or four ghost stories that exemplify the trope. The chapter headings indicate whether each chapter is written by Leanna, Andrea, or both. The tales discussed within range from famous figures like Lizzie Borden and Sarah Winchester to little-known local haunts. The final section of the book tackles “Frauds, Fakes, and Mythmaking,” exploring provably false ghost stories, why they were invented, and why they persist despite a lack of evidence. Lastly, an “Afterward” written by Linda D. Addison meditates on the importance of stories. 

Part of what makes this book so special is that both of these authors have truly personal connections to the stories they tell. Both have worked ghost stories extensively into their professional lives (Andrea as the founder of the ghost tour company Boroughs of the Dead and Leanna as both a guide for the company and the author of many paranormal books); both have had unexplainable encounters with the seemingly supernatural; and both display a profound empathy for the fellow women whose stories they give voice to. Leanna and Andrea sprinkle in personal anecdotes alongside their fact-finding and cultural analysis—and many of these are ones I’ve heard them tell over the years, either on tours or in casual conversation, so I can vouch that they haven’t just been made up just to sell this book! I was even present for one such supernatural encounter and remember Leanna remarking upon it to me at the time: Longtime readers of this blog might remember that I posted a few years ago about attending Leanna’s launch parties for her Strangely Beautiful and Eterna Files series, which were often hosted at the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan. At one such launch party, Leanna mentioned to me that she had felt the presence of the mansion’s resident spirit, Eliza Jumel, looking over her shoulder as she gave her reading. Another historic home in Manhattan that both Leanna and Andrea have had supernatural experiences in is the Merchant’s House Museum. While I wasn’t present for any of these spectral encounters, I have seen both authors passionately advocate for the preservation of this historic building and rally support when it was in serious danger of being damaged. Leanna and Andrea care deeply about the places, people, and history that they write about and I couldn’t think of anyone more perfect to write this book.

In addition to loving the real-life locations and legends they discuss, Leanna and Andrea are both fans of Gothic literature. This shows through in the way that they choose to organize this book by character tropes, several of which are pulled directly from the pages of the Gothic. Ghost stories and Gothic literature are intimately entwined, with the ghosts appearing in the earliest of Gothic novels and the oldest of Gothic tropes continuing to influence the way we tell ghost stories today. One such Gothic trope is that of “madness,” which this book explores in its section on “madwomen.” In the introduction to this section, Leanna explains how nineteenth-century perceptions of mental health continue to influence which people and what behaviors get deemed “mad” by mainstream society. Within this section, Leanna’s chapter on Jan Bryant Bartell explores another of my favorite Gothic tropes, the unreliable narrator. Leanna and Andrea also go into more detail on how Gothic literature connects to ghost stories in their introduction to the section on “Spinsters and Widows,” using Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to explain how women—especially those who live to an old age as spinsters or widows—become conflated with the houses they inhabit, thus creating a haunted house even before their death. One last literary connection that I can’t leave out is the entire final chapter of this book: “The Mythmaking of Marie Rogêt.” I’ve discussed Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” in my post on the invention of True Crime as a genre. What I didn’t realize is that not only is this story by America’s foremost Gothic writer based on real-life events, but there’s also an alleged haunting that goes with it. The site where the body of real-life murder victim Mary Rogers was found—a natural spring known as Sybil’s Cave in Hoboken, New Jersey—has a haunted reputation even though only the vaguest of spectral stories are attached to it. Leanna ultimately concludes that whether or not Mary’s spirit lingers, what haunts this place is “her violent, unresolved death” and “our human need for answers and justice.” Hauntings, like Gothic literature, are stories. And these tell us more about ourselves and the society we live in than they do about the existential questions of life after death. 

A Haunted History of Invisible Women can be enjoyed by both skeptics and believers in the spirit world alike. I especially recommend it to anyone interested in women’s history and the importance of stories. You can find the book on shelves now or order it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. And one lucky person can win a free, signed copy using the Rafflecopter widget below! The book currently has just Leanna’s signature, but I will try to grab Andrea’s signature as well before I mail it out. The giveaway will run from now until December 19. Must have a mailing address within the U.S. to enter. If you’ve already read the book, be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments!

a Rafflecopter giveaway