Book Description

A DEMOCRACY OF GHOSTS is the love story of four couples, set against the backdrop of the Herrin Massacre of 1922. This clash of miners and strikebreakers in Bloody Williamson County, in Southern Illinois, resulted in the deaths of 21 men -- 19 of them the "scabs" tortured and murdered by average men, women, and even children in what was once the most radical community in America. John Griswold has drawn from contemporary eyewitnesses and news accounts, an ethnography of the area, histories, and his own grandfather's letters to create the lives of four fictional couples whose ambitions, self-doubts, and social and sexual jealousies contribute to this great American violence that still echoes down through time. "At times disturbing and tragically violent, always insightful, poignant and uncompromising, Griswold's riveting narrative is filled with complex mean and women bursting with life. Fast-paced and powerful, GHOSTS is an original rise told by a masterful writer." -- Duff Brenna, author of THE BOOK OF MAMIE and THE LAW OF FALLING BODIES "Readers may uncomfortably identify with the characters in GHOSTS because they are not bigger than life, have many fallacies and no scruples. Neither saints nor sinners, but possessing the qualities of both, the characters of A DEMOCRACY OF GHOSTS are liars, cheaters, killers, torturers, and opportunists; at the same time, they are loving, humorous, protective, and very human." -- Lee Gooden, FOREWORD MAGAZINE, July 2009 "With iron and blood, it seems, and from the rich depths of the earth, John Griswold has fashioned a classic American novel, its dignified intonations of our young nation's sweat and tears evocative of the indelible storytelling of Dos Passos, Frank Norris, and Upton Sinclair." -- Bob Shacochis