Happy Halloween!

Although I am a longtime subscriber to the New Yorker, I am hopelessly behind on reading it. Ditto for the  many items the magazine posts to its Culture Desk blog, such as this essay by Nell Stevens: "What Ghost Stories Taught me about My Queer Self." In it, Nell Stevens discussing growing up gay in England while "promoting homosexuality" was still illegal, and recalls the literary works that comforted her and inspired her eventual coming out--many of them horror and suspense stories. (Oh, well: At least I'm posting this before the witching hour!)

Back in June, Stevens published a novel, Briefly: A Delicious Life, whose setup sounds quite, well, delicious: "In 1473, 14-year-old Bianca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly 400 years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Bianca is still there. A spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she's been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and townspeople and keeping track of her descendants."