65 pages • 2 hours read
The Ghostwriter
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Foreword-Chapter 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death, addiction, emotional abuse, gender discrimination, illness, and animal death.
Foreword Summary
Ten-year-old Olivia Taylor hears a rumor that her father, Vincent, killed his brother, Danny, and his sister, Poppy, when they were still young. Olivia refuses to believe the rumor at first, thinking the rumormonger is just jealous that her father is a rising star in the horror literary scene. It soon occurs to her that everyone in school believes the rumor, which circulates as an urban legend.
An adult Olivia recounts the basic details surrounding her aunt and uncle’s murders. On June 13, 1975, the night of the Ojai Carnival, Poppy went home to pick up a sweater when she was suddenly killed in her bedroom. Danny’s body was found in the hallway; he was presumably killed while trying to save Poppy. As Olivia grew older, the reputation of her family’s story rubbed off on her, leaving her with almost no friends. This overshadowed the shame of having been abandoned by her mother when she was younger.
Danny and Poppy are missed for their lost potential. Vincent, on the other hand, is thought of as a volatile outsider who ended up having Olivia with his high school girlfriend, Lydia. Olivia, who now works as a ghostwriter, understands that her father worked hard to prevent her from seeing how she inherited her family’s traits.
