{"product_id":"american-ghost-a-familys-extraordinary-history-on-the-desert-frontier","title":"American Ghost: A Family's Extraordinary History on the Desert Frontier","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"A haunting story about the long reach of the past.\"--Maureen Corrigan, NPR'S Fresh Air\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this intriguing book, [Nordhaus] shares her journey to discover who her immigrant ancestor really was--and what strange alchemy made the idea of her linger long after she was gone.\" --People\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLa Posada--\"place of rest\"--was once a grand Santa Fe mansion. It belonged to Abraham and Julia Staab, who emigrated from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. After they died, the house became a hotel. And in the 1970s, the hotel acquired a resident ghost--a sad, dark-eyed woman in a long gown. Strange things began to happen there: vases moved, glasses flew, blankets were ripped from beds. Julia Staab died in 1896--but her ghost, they say, lives on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn American Ghost, Julia's great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus, traces her ancestor's transfiguration from nineteenth-century Jewish bride to modern phantom. Family diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings take her on a riveting journey through three hundred years of German history and the American immigrant experience. With the help of historians, genealogists, family members, and ghost hunters, she weaves a masterful, moving story of fin-de-siècle Europe and pioneer life, villains and visionaries, medicine and spiritualism, imagination and truth, exploring how lives become legends, and what those legends tell us about who we are.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow does a nineteenth-century German bride become a twenty-first-century ghost?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Paranormal Investigation: \u003c\/b\u003e The author joins ghost hunters, psychics, and mediums at the haunted La Posada hotel, digging into the strange events that have kept her ancestor's story alive.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eDeep Genealogical Research: \u003c\/b\u003e Follow a trail of family diaries, newspaper clippings, and historical archives from the dusty Southwest back to nineteenth-century Germany to uncover the real Julia Staab.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Journalist's Memoir: \u003c\/b\u003e As Julia's great-great-granddaughter, Hannah Nordhaus weaves her own personal journey of discovery into the historical tapestry of her family's hidden past.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe American West: \u003c\/b\u003e Explore the rough-and-tumble world of territorial Santa Fe, where Jewish merchants like Abraham Staab built fortunes and European brides confronted a strange and unforgiving new world.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51984302670055,"sku":"9780062249203","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0449\/4075\/5096\/files\/imageloader_7ea44064-089d-4317-b6f6-f4f9f8688c71.jpg?v=1776316135","url":"https:\/\/arvidabookco.com\/products\/american-ghost-a-familys-extraordinary-history-on-the-desert-frontier","provider":"Arvida Book Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}