{"product_id":"american-ghost-a-familys-haunted-past-in-the-desert-southwest-isbn-9780062249210","title":"American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“A haunting story about the long reach of the past.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’S \u003cem\u003eFresh Air\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“In this intriguing book, [Nordhaus] shares her journey to discover who her immigrant ancestor really was—and what strange alchemy made the idea of her linger long after she was gone.” —\u003cem\u003ePeople\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLa Posada—“place of rest”—was once a grand Santa Fe mansion. It belonged to Abraham and Julia Staab, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. After they died, the house became a hotel. And in the 1970s, the hotel acquired a resident ghost—a sad, dark-eyed woman in a long gown. Strange things began to happen there: vases moved, glasses flew, blankets were ripped from beds. Julia Staab died in 1896—but her ghost, they say, lives on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/em\u003e, Julia’s great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus, traces her ancestor’s transfiguration from nineteenth-century Jewish bride to modern phantom. Family diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings take her on a riveting journey through three hundred years of German history and the American immigrant experience. With the help of historians, genealogists, family members, and ghost hunters, she weaves a masterful, moving story of fin-de-siècle Europe and pioneer life, villains and visionaries, medicine and spiritualism, imagination and truth, exploring how lives become legends, and what those legends tell us about who we are.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eLa Posada—“place of rest”—was once a grand Santa Fe mansion. It belonged to Abraham and Julia Staab, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. After they died, the house became a hotel. And in the 1970s, the hotel acquired a resident ghost—a sad, dark-eyed woman in a long gown. Strange things began to happen there: vases moved, glasses flew, blankets were ripped from beds. Julia Staab died in 1896—but her ghost, they say, lives on.\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/em\u003e, Julia’s great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus, traces her ancestor’s transfiguration from nineteenth-century Jewish bride to modern phantom. Family diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings take her on a riveting journey through three hundred years of German history and the American immigrant experience. With the help of historians, genealogists, family members, and ghost hunters, she weaves a masterful, moving story of fin-de-siècle Europe and pioneer life, villains and visionaries, medicine and spiritualism, imagination and truth, exploring how lives become legends, and what those legends tell us about who we are. | \u003cp\u003e“A thoughtful and intriguing chronicle of familial investigation.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Part travelogue, part memoir, part ghost story, part history. . . . Nordhaus offers a deeply compelling personal account of her attempts to better understand her own family. . . . The book’s unique blend of genres and its excellent writing make it hard to put down.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e is at once an engrossing portrait of a forgotten female pioneer and a fascinating meditation on the fine line between history and lore. Hannah Nordhaus has crafted a seamless blend of gripping mystery, moving family confessional, and chilling ghost story.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKaren Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Tenaciously researched and beautifully written, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e gives flesh to a lost story, exhumes a bygone world, and animates the ways in which the past haunts all of us. Hannah Nordhaus has performed a lyrical feat of dead-raising.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBenjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire's Vinegar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Beautifully written and self-aware, a memoir that tells a story and searches for broader lessons. . . . Ultimately, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e is not just the story of a haunting, but a story that will haunt its readers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A spirited memoir of one of the earliest Jewish pioneer families in the American West…A delightful travelogue…reads like a novel.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJewish Book Council\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“All of us are haunted — by vestiges of the past, and, as Hannah Nordhaus poignantly observes in American Ghost, by the ghosts of who we thought we were or thought we would become.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoulder Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNordhaus’s lyrical memoir … untangles truth and legend, the tale of success and the hardships of life, the woman and the ghost.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJewish Woman Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] chronicle of German-Jewish immigration to the American Southwest, a reckoning of family secrets, and an account of the author’s personal ghost hunt.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSanta Fe New Mexican\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Nordhaus takes us on a journey back in time — by any means possible — in order to draw a better picture of who her great-great-grandmother was.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A colorful and engrossing quest…. In exhuming Julia’s story, Nordhaus asks questions mere enthusiasts might not: Do tales like Julia’s ferret out truths or bend them to fit contemporary molds?…. Such introspection deepens her genealogical quest into a satisfying philosophical one as well.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eElle Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A spirited memoir of one of the earliest Jewish pioneer families in the West. . . . A delightful travelogue.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJWeekly.com\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An incredible story. . . . A haunting tale.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNational Examiner\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hannah Nordhaus braids personal memoir with historical research and resolute ghost hunting in a narrative that investigates the restless spirit of her great-great-grandmother Julia Schuster Staab.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hannah Nordhaus writes a detective story, although it’s not fiction, and a ghost story, although it’s not a chiller. It’s biography and history and the product of investigative research, yet everything of power, even scholarly process, must come from the heart, and so does this story.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A gripping account of frontier life from an immigrant Jewish woman’s perspective.  It is the author’s connection of the past where she explores the story, trying to separate the history and the myth.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorking Mother\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The more Nordhaus digs into the history and explores the supernatural dimensions of the story, the more complex and intriguing it becomes. \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e is a multi-genre work that succeeds on a number of levels.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDenver Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Whether you believe in ghosts or are just intrigued by their persistence in popular culture, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e is itself a haunting story about the long reach of the past.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In this intriguing book, [Nordhaus] shares her journey to discover who her immigrant ancestor really was - and what strange alchemy made the idea of her linger long after she was gone.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] graceful and ominous family history…. American Ghost is a purview into a Jewish subculture no less rich, factious or historically relevant than the Pale of Settlement or the Lower East Side.”—Newsweek - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Journalist Nordhaus (The Beekeeper’s Lament) embarks on a “ghost hunt” for her great-great-grandmother, German immigrant Julia Schuster Staab, in this unique collision of family history, Wild West adventure, and ghost story. Perceptive, witty, and engaging, Nordhaus observes that “it’s not so much the ghost that keeps the dead alive... as it is the story.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fascinating and frequently surprising. Ultimately, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e is a reflection on how the unresolved questions in our own histories can be even more haunting than ghosts.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The author’s multifaceted work brings Julia back to life and explores the journey it took to rediscover her narrative. . . . Every aspect of the account is enlightening, well written, and entertaining. This touching and uplifting work is highly recommended and will appeal to a variety of readers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Expertly dissects fact from embroidery. . . . A colorful and engrossing quest.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eElle, \"7 Must-Read Books\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A fascinating and nuanced account of her ancestral ghost story and her complicated clan.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Nordhaus attacks her subject with the same scholarship and lively writing that made her nonfiction debut, \u003ci\u003eThe Beekeeper’s Lament\u003c\/i\u003e, a beloved best-seller. . . . Fascinating.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDallas Morning News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] funny, moving, and suspenseful tale.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Week\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Journalist Hannah Nordhaus braids personal memoir with historical research and resolute ghost hunting in a narrative that investigates the restless spirit of her great-great-grandmother Julia Schuster Staab.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I don’t believe in ghosts. Or at least I \u003ci\u003edidn’t\u003c\/i\u003e, until I read Hannah Nordhaus’s carefully sifted and exquisitely well-told reconstruction of a frontier family well known to my hometown of Santa Fe. Here is a very different sort of a Western, a deeply feminine story with a strong whiff of the paranormal--Willa Cather meets Stephen King. Don’t read this book late at night . . . unless you like feeling your neck hairs stand up on end!” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHampton Sides, author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Blood and Thunder\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Here is a very different sort of a Western, a deeply feminine story with a strong whiff of the paranormal--Willa Cather meets Stephen King. Don’t read this book late at night . . . unless you like feeling your neck hairs stand up on end!” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHampton Sides, author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Blood and Thunder\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hannah Nordhaus approaches the legend of her great-great-grandmother’s ghost with the insight of an historian and the energy of an inspired detective. A fine tale well told. I loved every word.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman's Daughter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A unique collision of family history, Wild West adventure, and ghost story. . . . Perceptive, witty, and engaging.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888163680485,"sku":"NP9780062249210","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062249210.jpg?v=1730228306","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/american-ghost-a-familys-haunted-past-in-the-desert-southwest-isbn-9780062249210","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}