Unholy Ghost is a unique collection of essays about depression that, in the spirit of William Styron's Darkness Visible, finds vivid expression for an elusive illness suffered by more than one in five Americans today. Unlike any other memoir of depression, however, Unholy Ghost includes many voices and depicts the most complete portrait of the illness. Lauren Slater eloquently describes her own perilous experience as a pregnant woman on antidepressant medication. Susanna Kaysen, writing for the first time about depression since Girl, Interrupted, criticizes herself and others for making too much of the illness. Larry McMurtry recounts the despair that descended after his quadruple bypass surgery. Meri Danquah describes the challenges of racism and depression. Ann Beattie sees melancholy as a consequence of her writing life. And Donald Hall lovingly remembers the "moody seesaw" of his relationship with his wife, Jane Kenyon. The collection also includes an illuminating series of companion pieces. Russell Banks's and Chase Twichell's essays represent husbandand-wife perspectives on depression; Rose Styron's contribution about her husband's struggle with melancholy is paired with an excerpt from William Styron's Darkness Visible; and the book's editor, Nell Casey, juxtaposes her own essay about seeing her sister through her depression with Maud Casey's account of this experience. These companion pieces portray the complicated bond -- a constant grasp for mutual understandingforged by depressives and their family members. With an introduction by Kay Redfield Jamison, Unholy Ghost allows the bewildering experience of depression to be adequately and beautifully rendered. The twenty-two stories that make up this book will offer solace and enlightenment to all readers.

Book six in the Downside Ghosts series.

IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN ALIVE AND UNDEAD. Chess Putnam has a lot on her plate. Mangled human corpses have started to show up on the streets of Downside, and Chess’s bosses at the Church of Real Truth have ordered her to team up with the ultra-powerful Black Squad agency to crack the grisly case. Chess is under a binding spell that threatens death if she talks about the investigation, but the city’s most notorious crime boss—and Chess’s drug dealer—gets wind of her new assignment and insists on being kept informed. If that isn’t bad enough, a sinister street vendor appears to have information Chess needs. Only he’s not telling what he knows, or what it all has to do with the vast underground City of Eternity. Now Chess will have to navigate killer wraiths, First Elders, and a lot of seriously nasty magic—all while coping with some not-so-small issues of her own. And the only man Chess can trust to help her through it all has every reason to want her dead.

The remake of a classic horror film awakens something violent from the past, and only the Krewe of Hunters can stop it, in book 6 of the fan-favorite suspense series, only from New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham. At Hollywood's Black Box Cinema, a young starlet dies a terrifying death. When a movie mogul's son is charged with the grisly murder, he calls agent Sean Cameron, who specializes in irregular investigations. As part of the FBI's paranormal team, Cameron knows that nightmares aren't limited to the silver screen. Working with special-effects artist Madison Darvil—who has her own otherworldly gifts—Cameron delves into the malevolent force animating more than one movie monster. But will they be in time to stop the next noir scenario come to life?

Worldly, Jewish, at one time a standout on his legendary Greenwich Village basketball team, an American classical guitar teacher seeks a new life in Portugal after the death of so many friends. But what he calls the viral eclipse over sexuality pursues him even there, when Antonio, his most talented and beloved student, tests HIV-positive and threatens to give up on life at just twenty-four. Desperate to show the young man that he still has a future, 'the Professor' arranges a car trip across Spain to Paris, hoping to be able to convince a leading virtuoso there to begin preparing his protege for a concert career. Antonio's estranged father, Miguel, a stonemason by trade, insists on coming along with them, and en route the three fall into a triangle of adventure, personal disclosure, violence, and at last a strange redemption.

Chess is a fiercely independent witch and talented Debunker - working for the Church of Real Truth to exorcise ghosts and expose human liars. But she has a dark little secret that is causing her a lot of problems - a drug addiction. Life is getting too complicated and Chess must break the rules to keep her head above water.

Enter a world of danger, ghosts and magic in the fantastic Downside Ghosts series. With characters as compelling as 50 Shades of Grey, Downside Ghosts will not disappoint.

A DEADLY HIGH Magic-wielding Churchwitch and secret addict Chess Putnam knows better than anyone just how high a price people are willing to pay for a chemical rush. But when someone with money to burn and a penchant for black magic starts tampering with Downside’s drug supply, Chess realizes that the unlucky customers are paying with their souls—and taking the innocent with them, as the magic-infused speed compels them to kill in the most gruesome ways possible. As if the streets weren’t scary enough, the looming war between the two men in her life explodes, taking even more casualties and putting Chess squarely in the middle. Downside could become a literal ghost town if Chess doesn’t find a way to stop both the war and the dark wave of death-magic, and the only way to do that is to use both her addiction and her power to enter the spell and chase the magic all the way back to its malevolent source. Too bad that doing so will probably kill Chess—if the war doesn’t first destroy the man who’s become her reason for living.

When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988 it unleashed an unprecedented controversy throughout the world. While Muslim countries around the globe unanimously condemned the publication for its attempt to assassinate the character of the Holy Prophet of Islam, Western nations went to the other extreme, defending the publication to the hilt, presenting 'freedom of speech' as the licence to print inflammatory material without any regard for boundaries or responsibilities. Adding insult to injury, the book was heralded as a work of literature and was even nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize, and the author turned into some sort of hero. Rushdie: Haunted by His Unholy Ghosts charts a course that lies between these two contrasting attitudes. It rejects some of the extremism expressed by the East but also condemns the attitude of the West. It also highlights the true teachings regarding blasphemy in Islam and proves that the edict of the Fatwa was an illegal act. The book explores the role played by the western orientalists who have been instrumental in increasing the rift between Islam and the West. It traces the animosity against Islam ever since its inception, through the barbarity of the Crusades right up to the present day. It also examines the legacy that the book has created in perpetuating a trail of similar provocative acts perpetrated in the West such as the Danish cartoons and the increasing militancy of some Muslims culminating in the acts of 9/11 and 7/7. The issue of freedom of speech has been discussed at great length which is the topic of the day. It proves how unchecked freedom can become a curse. The literary career of Salman Rushdie has been examined in great detail and this book attempts to prove that his role in the whole sordid affair was not as innocent as it is made out to be. In fact, he is shown to possess truly Mephistophelian characteristics. There is, however, a positive message for the future. Enlightened people in the West, Prince Charles among them, still offer a great opportunity of hope by presenting the real image of Islam and so contribute to narrowing the gulf between Islam and the West.

"Ghost Behind The Sun", Tav Falco's sprawling study of Memphis, begins with the Civil War massacre at Fort Pillow, the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 and the grisly murders of the Harp Brothers. Falco traces these legends of Reconstruction-era Memphis to an equally brutal twentieth century underworld – Beale Street kingpin Jim Canaan, Edward Crump's political machine, the Dixie Mafia, and others. Also included are revelatory dialogues concerning the city’s many music legends, from rockabilly icons Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Feathers to more underground figures such as Jim Dickinson and country blues wailer Jessie Mae Hemphill. Interwoven with these accounts is an autobiographical history of Falco’s own time in Memphis, including his involvement with performance art ensemble Insect Trust, working with pop/rock maverick Alex Chilton, and the formation of his seminal rock and roll band, Panther Burns. Illustrated throughout.