Elisabeth de Mariaffi

In 2009, freshly liberated from a bad marriage, I flew from Toronto to Banff, Alberta, to begin a program at the Centre for the Arts. I needed a restart, a way to focus on my writing, which had taken a back seat to children for ten years. The Rockies made for an oppressive backdrop. Wildlife warnings loomed…

In Hilary Mantel’s 2009 Guardian review of Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger—a post-war tale of a haunted mansion—she refers to the protagonist, Dr. Faraday, in his most important role: the skeptic. “Every ghost story,” Mantel writes, “needs a Dr. Faraday, a blunt literalist with a sturdy sense of self.” And whose sense of self could be sturdier than an English country…