The Haunting of Alma Fielding : SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020

by Summerscale, Kate

London, Greater London

Published 16/09/2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 368 pages

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 'A page-turner with the authority of history' PHILIPPA GREGORY'As gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read' SARAH WATERSLondon, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home.

Nandor Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research - begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.

With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.

'An empathetic, meticulous account of a spiritual unravelling; a tribute to the astonishing power of the human mind - but also a properly absorbing, baffling, satisfying detective story' AIDA EDEMARIAMA PICK OF THE AUTUMN IN THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND THE GUARDIAN