Reader's Diary #1077- Elinor Nash: The Ghost Boy

 

I stumbled upon Elinor Nash's short story "The Ghost Boy" earlier this year, clearly only paying attention to the title, explaining why I bookmarked it as a Halloween story.

It's not.

Instead it's about a teenage boy named Jake Bennett who sees the world differently since his bicycle accident. There are a lot of fascinating things about Jake's new perception, but I think what Nash does brilliantly here is to make readers question whether or not all these new ways of looking at the world really indicate a handicap or a strength. There's no doubt Jake's new brain doesn't allow for a a comfortable existence in the regular world, but some of this is undeniably problematic (particularly the violent lash-outs) unfortunately helping negate or ignore the poetic beauty to some of his more unique interpretations.

I think fans of Emma Donoghue's Room or Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime would enjoy the story.

   by  Bertoz