Title A Fine and Private Place Series --- Author Peter S. Beagle Cover Art Ray Lundgren Publisher Roc - 1992 First Printing 1960 Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Michael Morgan, Mr. Rebeck, Laura Main Elements Ghosts

One of the most unusual and charming "ghost stories" ever written, A Fine and Private Place introduces readers to Michael Morgan, an ordinary man in an ordinary life...who is not quite ready to be dead. And until he is ready, Michael finds himself trapped between this world and what comes next. He is able to speak only with Mr. Rebeck, the eccentric recluse who lives in a nearby mausoleum, and with an ornery raven - until Laura arrives, ready to take up residence in the cold earth of her grave...

Together they learn the boundaries of life and death, and the extraordinary gifts of love.

In this deeply moving fantasy, the award-winning author of The Last Unicorn and Giant Bones takes us on a journey that will break your heart - and help it heal again.

Having read The Last Unicorn I had ridiculously high expectations about this book. I picked it to read the October because it was a Ghost Story but not a Haunting. It wasn't meant to be scary and that's the way I like my ghost tales, I get creeped out by ghosts too easily.

However, it didn't resonnate with me like The Last Unicorn did. Now, to be fair I pretty well grew up on The Last Unicorn and it remains one of my favorite movies still. A Fine and Private Place talks of a man who dies and becomes a ghost but isn't ready to let go. Of course he can't help fading, forgetting moments of his past and would have drifted away sooner if it weren't for Mr. Rebeck, a man living in a tomb in the graveyard because he feels he doesn't fit in with the rest of the world outside the cemetery gates. He has company, a raven to which he can speak and who brings him food (why? Even the raven doesn't know, its just what his kind does). And he can also speak to the spirits but they are fleeting, passing on, but Michael stays, especially after Laura appears. Laura wants to move on but it seems, that because she didn't really live much during her life, Michael has convinced her to remain a little longer to live a little more.

Michael's story becomes complicated. His wife is accused of his murder, and when Michael hears this he remembers things that seem to hold the story up. But its far more complicated that even that.

The book is beautifully written, an opportunity reflect on life, death and love. But while books like Piranesi and the Night Circus drew me into their worlds, I don't know, I just didn't connect to the introspections here. Though keep in mind Beagle was only nineteen when he wrote this, that's an impressive feat, to be able to discuss life in such detail without having lived much of it yourself.

I'm not unhappy to have read it, I didn't feel I had wasted my time, and it was a very thoughtful and inspired experience, but I'm not sure I'm inclined to read it again? On the other hand, this might be a book that resonnates very differently depending on when in your life you read it. It does however make me thing of the song, The Rose (which is a song that can make me cry):

It's the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance.
Its the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin', that never learns to live.

This only describes a couple of the characters, but still...its a beautiful song and a beautiful book.