The Spirit Photographer: A Novel - Hardcover

Jon Michael Varese is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is currently the Director of Public Outreach for The Dickens Project, and has lectured and written widely on nineteenth-century literature for several outlets, including the Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Spirit Photographer, a story that evolved from his work in nineteenth-century American history, is his first novel.

“There is not a dud word in this extraordinary debut novel . . . Varese seamlessly weaves the historical material into his murky Southern Gothic tale . . . There are echoes of Wilkie Collins in Varese’s deft handling of this material, with snippets of reportage maintaining the narrative’s vitality. Even more prominent are the connections to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, from the steamboat Sotto Voice, which ferries Moody and Winter to the dark heartland of American slavery, to the voodoo-practicing Henriette La Janue, who reigns supreme in her remote, swamp-infested Southern landscape, a place where the very shadows cry out in horror.”
- Times Literary Supplement

“Perfect for the history buff in your life . . . The Spirit Photographer navigates a rich and detailed world inhabited by both the living and the dead.”
- Buzzfeed

“In The Spirit Photographer spirits lurk in the memory, as does the scarcely buried history of slavery. Atmospheric, lyrical, and poignant, the novel deftly interweaves strands of history and fantasy”
- PopMatters

“Varese’s unique first novel is set deep in the secrets of the postwar years, when the chains of slavery have vanished but an equally sinister underside to society remains. An entertaining amalgam of history and fiction, gothic and ghost story, The Spirit Photographer is an addicting tale.”
- Booklist (starred review)

“Equal parts Southern Gothic, ghost story, and political drama, The Spirit Photographer reveals the past for what it is: loud, unrelenting, and inescapable. . . . Varese's debut novel weaves the fictional and the real; history imprints on the novel like a spirit on Moody's photographs. . . . The humid, mysterious bayou scenes reveal Varese's keen eye . . . Deft and melodic. Teeming with spirits, secrets, and trauma, The Spirit Photographer is a sprawling, ambitious, and uncomfortable debut”
- Chronogram

“The Spirit Photographer incorporates elements of magic realism and Southern gothic . . . [and] questions the extent to which photography captures reality or alters perceptions. Readers . . . will find much to investigate and discuss in literary historian Varese's debut novel.”
- Library Journal

“An intricately plotted debut novel that combines post-Civil War history with a ghost story . . . The writing is vivid, even lyrical at times, and the passages on Reconstruction are illuminating. . . . The deep divide in the country circa 1870 is vaguely reminiscent of our own time.”
- Kirkus Reviews

“There’s a great deal of historical fact in this story, giving the reader the choice of viewing the tale as a background to history or simply a very imaginative mystery novel. Either way, readers will have an enjoyable journey through the turmoil of the world following the cessation of the war and the devastation of Reconstruction as seen through northern eyes. . . . A different kind of detective story, The Spirit Photographer is an American gothic novel set in a time of post-war turmoil. Jon Michael Varese has written a very entertaining and haunting story of historical suspense.”
- New York Journal of Books

“Through the protagonist Moody we learn of the horrors of Reconstruction and the strength of love. . . .The writing is crisp, and the storytelling keeps a quick pace and helps illuminate the racial inequalities during the Reconstruction period. Varese’s debut is . . . an intriguing look at the Reconstruction period through a unique lens.”
- Historical Novels Review

“The Spirit Photographer unexpectedly brings race and Southern Gothic to the world of Boston after the Civil War . . . Ghosts of a different kind haunt national memory in this groundbreaking new historical novel.”
- Susan Gillman, author of Blood Talk: American Race Melodrama and the Culture of the Occult