Unraveling Secrets: Benjamin Hale on the Mysterious Disappearance That Haunts the Ozarks
BH: The ghost story at the heart of it is crucial because some people (not me) believing it is really the only thing that connects the two stories, and it bothers me because it is the most narratively tantalizing element of the book — I know it’s a major selling point, from the editor considering acquiring the manuscript all the way down, years later, to the bookstore customer perusing the jacket copy (and of course the former is thinking about the latter) — but at the same time I don’t believe it, I never have, I don’t want anyone to think I believe it, and I am certainly not trying to make anyone else believe it.
