Sharyn McCrumb is clearly one of the most distinguished contemporary Appalachian authors. This is the 13th novel in McCrumb’s Ballad Series. Running concurrently were her three St. Dale novels proceeded by nine Elizabeth MacPherson novels and two Jay Omega novels. She has also authored two short story collections. Two of her novels were on New York Times best-seller lists, and she has won numerous awards including the Library of Virginia’s “Virginia Women in History” award. Her books have been translated into eleven languages, and she has lectured widely, including at Oxford University and the Smithsonian Institution. She was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and raised in Greenville, North Carolina, but drawn to the Appalachia of her forbearers, and lives near the Appalachian Trail north of Roanoke. The Unquiet Ghost is the ghost of Zona Hester, the Greenbrier Ghost, arguably the most famous ghost in West Virginia folklore. Hester’s mother claims in 1897 that her daughter’s ghost informed her that her daughter’s mysterious death was really a murder perpetrated by her husband, Erasmus Trout Shue, a “foreigner” to Greenbrier County natives. This novel begins in Lakin, West Virginia, in 1930 in a segregated insane asylum where James P. D. Gardner, the first Black attorney to practice law in West Virginia, tells Dr. James Boozer about his service as the defense lawyer for a white man, Erasmus Trout Shue. “Touching on mental illness, race and superstition, The Unquiet Grave is not only an informative read, but one that never loses sight of its story—a chilly retelling of an Appalachian legend finely resurrected under McCrumb’s pen.” - Mountain Times. “McCrumb has a real knack for crafting full-bodied characters and using folklore to construct compelling plots.” - Booklist "Woven with legend and carefully handcrafted as only McCrumb can accomplish. The Greenbrier Ghost has once again risen to claim its rightful place among America’s best ghost stories and the most rare—the ones that are actually true." - Sherri Brake.
New York: Atria Books, a 2018 paperback reprint of a 2017 hardback release. 368 pages. Trade paperback