It’s not spooky, in spite of its title. It’s even endearing, enchanting, yes. A living boy who is raised by the spirits of a graveyard. It sounds like the premise for a ghost story – well, a scary ghost story – but it turns out, in this book, the spirits of the dead are kindhearted, or snobbish, clumsy, or pragmatic, as are the spirits of the living. The characters are so diverse and witty that imagining a cemetery filled with ghostly figures stops being as scary as we might imagine. I can’t really put my finger on what makes this book so special for me, but I have found its influence on my writing often. It is perhaps not a coincidence that any major stories I have begun – and am yet to finish – portray, in one way or another, death. Its prose is magnificent, and while I’ve only read the book once, I’ve listened to Neil Gaiman reading it to a live audience over and over again. This book has found its way into my heart from the first read, and this month its first edition turns ten! It’s the month of Halloween, so what better excuse to read or re-read it?
To mark the date, Bloomsbury has released a special tenth-year anniversary edition, and I’m longing to get my hands on one of these!
A post shared by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) on Oct 18, 2018 at 10:25am PDT
