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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2008, 288 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2008, 288 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Lucia Silva
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From the bestselling author of She's Not There comes
another buoyant, unforgettable memoir—I'm Looking Through You is about
growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in
our hearts.
For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the
remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in
which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren't the only specters beneath the
roof of the mansion known as the "Coffin House." Jenny herself—born James—lived
in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild,
unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well.
I'm Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it
means to be "haunted." Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home,
Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if
questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections
between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and
eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find
peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries,
real and imagined, between men and women.
Dirty Deeds
I was in a biker bar. There were worse places. My colleagues, who had names like
Lumpy and Gargoyle, thought no less of me simply because I was an English
professor. It's nothing to be ashamed of, one dude suggested. It's what's inside
your heart that counts.
The venue—the Astrid Hotel, in Astrid, Maine—was famous not only for the
skankiness of its patrons but also for its ghost, an undead girl who walked its
tattered hallways weeping in her pajamas. She'd drowned in the twenties, in the
nearby Kennebec River. The girl was determined, supposedly, to find her father
and her sister, who'd been guests of the hotel, back in the day. Hey. Don't you
know I can't swim?
I had come to the Astrid to play with my friends in an R&B band, Blue Stranger,
up on the hotel's grandiose stage, in what had once been a fancy ballroom. Now
it had a cement floor, fiberglass tiles on the ceiling. On one wall was a
rough-hewn mural of the north country. ...
An unexpectedly graceful mix of ideas about ghosts, childhood, sexuality, gender, family, death, and the many ways one can be haunted...continued
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(Reviewed by Lucia Silva).
Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls
Jenny Boylan’s I’m Looking Through You ranks right up there with Mary
Karr’s The Liar’s Club and Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life as one
of the finest literary memoirs of the last several decades. Like these, it’s a
haunting revelation of the human heart, its terrible longings, its fears and
joys, the secret recesses where we most truly dwell. How alike we all are, down
this deep.This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
More books by Jennifer Finney Boylan
If you liked I'm Looking Through You, try these:
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
Published 2013
Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, identity, home, and a mother.
by William Fiennes
Published 2010
A bittersweet description of an ancient family house in an enchanted setting, and of growing up with a damaged brother.
The Last Russian Doll
by Kristen Loesch
A haunting epic of betrayal, revenge, and redemption following three generations of Russian women.
Once We Were Home
by Jennifer Rosner
From the author of The Yellow Bird Sings, a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II.
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