Andrew Taylor

The child is not there

The ghost story is a literary form that favours brevity.

issue 11 September 2010

The ghost story is a literary form that favours brevity. Its particular emotional effects — the delicious unease it creates, the shapeless menace and the unsettling uncertainty — work particularly well in concentration, as both Henry James and M. R. James knew so well. A ghost story does not need distractions.

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