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GHOST RADIO is not the sort of book that I usually like. It's nonlinear. It has very short chapters that are used to break up the same scene into three or four smaller chunks. The point of view is almost random – sometimes third person, sometimes first, and often with a different person speaking as "I" every chapter. All of these things usually drive me away within a few pages. But there's something about the loose, dream-like narrative that haunted me. Haunted being very much the operative term; this is a book about a man who is haunted by his past, runs a radio talk show where people call in with their ghost stories, and whose sense of sanity and reality become unmoored over time. When Joaquin was a teenaged boy, his family was in a car accident. The only survivors were himself and Gabriel, the teenaged boy in the other car. They became friends, bonding in the hospital over a shared interest in sounds, music, and a radio horror show called Ghost Radio. When they became older, they formed a band called Los Deathmuertoz which blended rock and "found" sounds. One night during a particularly wild stunt, they were in a bad accident. This time, Joaquin survived, but Gabriel didn't. Joaquin moved on, founding a new version of the Ghost Radio talk show. (The book is peppered with call-in stories that sound like some of the creepier episodes of the Twilight Zone.) But he is getting strange messages – in the static on the airwaves, a helicopter flashing its lights in Morse code, even callers who sound like Gabriel. As the scene shifts from past to present and back again, the edges no longer match and reality is further adrift with every shift. Has Joaquin lost his mind? Did the ritual that he and Gabriel performed as kids unleash supernatural forces? Or has the radio show opened the door to the spirits who are being discussed? GHOST RADIO is not light reading. Nor is it a classic mystery. But it does serve up a Halloween chill to anyone willing to allow the book to set the pace and keep up with Joaquin‛s ever-changing world.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, September 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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